Help me build a client.

[aedgington]

I recently moved into a new house and have most of my HT system in place, and want to upgrade my main client, as it is too puny to play MKVs.

I'm feeding my plasma via component, and my AVR I'd prefer to go with optical or digital coax.

I'd like to use the D.VINE case that I already have, so heat is a consideration. I was looking at the 780G boards, but everyone seems to agree that the Intel chips are superior these days. I'd like to get as much on the board (video, sound) as possible so that I don't have extra cards generating heat.

So my design goals are:

Feed the monitor with component
Feed the AVR via digital optical or digital coax
Low heat/noise
FLAWLESS playback of 1080i MKVs
Possibly enough CPU horsepower to do post processing on Sage recordings

Do you guys think the 780G Gigabyte board will do it? If so, what processor?


Thanks!

[blade]

I've never tried to play mkv files with the HD Extender, but if it will play them you'd probably be better off going that route. Especially if noise is a concern. I hate noise in a HTPC. Even the sound of a single hard drive or 80mm fan running at 5v was too loud for my taste. I love having a completely silent extender.

[stroths]

I have been a long time SageTV user starting with a client/server in 1 PC and later expanding that to separate the server to its own PC. I recently retired my living room PC and replaced it with one of the HD Media Extenders. I am very pleased with its performance. Its so quiet in that room now when the TV is off now

[aedgington]

Thanks for the replies, but I'm really not interested in the Extender.

[cord]

The Intel chips are definitely superior, in terms of maximum performance and CPU power per watt. However (there's always a however), the AMD CPUs certainly don't suck, they're cheaper than the Intel chips, and the 780g chip set is just about the perfect beast for an HTPC playback machine.

Remember that it's usually the video card that's the bottleneck in video playback, so the CPU is less important. You can put a 65 watt AMD CPU into a 780g-based motherboard and still come in with a fairly low heat system, especially when you consider that you don't have to have a heat-generating video card sticking out of the PCI-E slot. The 780g chip set generates slightly more heat than the 690g did, but the built in video is much more powerful so it's worth the extra BTUs, in my opinion.

I have a server, two clients, and an HD extender, and the HD extender is my least favorite way to watch TV. It's a good product, but it won't replace my clients any time soon.

[Zippster]

Originally Posted by aedgington

Thanks for the replies, but I'm really not interested in the Extender.

If you saw the difference in quality and ease of use, you probably would be, there is NO comparison. I wish I had just jumped right into one vs all the time and money I wasted on a client setup.

[aedgington]

Sage won't handle all of my media, so the Extender is not an option.