I'm bored, new HTPC suggestions?

[stanger89]

OK, so maybe it's just that I'm bored, or maybe that I'm somewhat frustrated trying to get my HD300 to play nice with HBR bitstreaming, or probably both.

But I'm considering building a new HTPC for my HT to run SageClient. So I'm curious about your thoughts on the matter. (You know, I'm having a feeling of deja-vu here) What I'd like is:

• Something small
• Bitstreaming audio (PCM/TrueHD/DTS-HD MA) over HDMI
• good 1080i deinterlacing (and 480i too I suppose)
• VT-d

Yeah, I know, one of those things doesn't really belong, but really this would be an experment, and as so I'd like to kill two birds with one stone, I'd sorta like an ESXi box to run VMs to play with (maybe house a SageTV server again?). So it would be nice if I could find a solution that works well as an HTPC but can also work as an ESXi box should the HTPC thing not work out.

The board I've always sort of eyeballed for this is the Intel DQ57TM, which officially supports VT-d, and is on the ESXi whitebox HCL. Problem is it doesn't have HDMI. I think bitstreaming should work over Displayport->HDMI but I've not been able to find anyone who's tried it and confirmed it works...

Anyway, just looking for some thoughts.

[panteragstk]

Well, you could get that board and use it without issue, but with it being a 1156 socket board it limits you on CPU choices (a little). Also, the gpu's in the 1156 CPU's won't meet your deinterlacing needs. I have an AMD 6570 which is the lowest end AMD card that deinterlaces wonderfully. I have the same GPU in my i3 that you would end up with going with an 1156 board and it's decent, but there isn't much codec love for that series. The 1155 socket CPU's have quicksync which LAV supports so you may try to find a board with that socket. While 1155 GPU's aren't that much better at deinterlacing, but the new Ivy Bridge CPU's that are coming out soon should be pretty good for what you are wanting.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Well, you could get that board and use it without issue, but with it being a 1156 socket board it limits you on CPU choices (a little). Also, the gpu's in the 1156 CPU's won't meet your deinterlacing needs. I have an AMD 6570 which is the lowest end AMD card that deinterlaces wonderfully. I have the same GPU in my i3 that you would end up with going with an 1156 board and it's decent, but there isn't much codec love for that series. The 1155 socket CPU's have quicksync which LAV supports so you may try to find a board with that socket. While 1155 GPU's aren't that much better at deinterlacing, but the new Ivy Bridge CPU's that are coming out soon should be pretty good for what you are wanting.

With all that in mind, I'm thinking a better route might actually be to go with an AMD apu based solution. Really, the thing that made the i3 so good at HTPC clients was the integrated GPU, and the AMD one is quite a bit more polished and capable.

plus, newegg's got some deals on A55 based motherboard/cpu combos right now: http://promotions.newegg.com/AMD/12-...%2f696x288.jpg. You can get out the door with a LOT lower price tag than a comparable i3/i5 system.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

With all that in mind, I'm thinking a better route might actually be to go with an AMD apu based solution. Really, the thing that made the i3 so good at HTPC clients was the integrated GPU, and the AMD one is quite a bit more polished and capable.

plus, newegg's got some deals on A55 based motherboard/cpu combos right now: http://promotions.newegg.com/AMD/12-...%2f696x288.jpg. You can get out the door with a LOT lower price tag than a comparable i3/i5 system.

Would that combo support the virtualization he's looking for?