Dedicated Sage & Media PC

[J.K.B.]

I'm about to do a few upgrades to my main home pc and am debating using the leftover parts to build a sageTV/media PC vs just putting sage back on the existing machine.

Current specs are:

• XCLIO A380BK Full Tower
• i7 processor
• 8gb DDR3 1600 SDRAM
• ASUS P7P55 WS SuperComputer with NF200 LGA 1156 Intel P55 motherboard
• HIS H485FM512H Radeon HD 4850
• 1 - 500gb HD
• 7 - 2TB HDs
• 1 - BR disc player
• 1 - DVDrw
• Vista64 OS

If I go the route separating the systems I will be upgrading to a slightly smaller case that will fit in my study cabinet, a SSD for OS and 16gb ram and I would plan to recycle:

• The case
• All the HDDs
• The 8gb ram

What I will be doing with the new machine will be:

• Running sageTV with 3 extenders.
• clown
• handbrake

I would need to get:

• a mobo
• processor
• power supply - recommended wattage? I currently have a 650w corsair

• If I build the separate machine, would you recommend going with an AMD since I would primarily be running Sage by itself a majority of the time? I have never owned an AMD as I don't play games and always have many programs open for work and Intel has been the better choice.
  
• If using an AMD processor, what specs should it have? I have no idea how they compare?
• And what OS would you run? W7 is going on my upgrading machine

Thanks,

JKB

[KryptoNyte]

How much Handbrake encoding are we talking here ... like, a few hours a day?

[J.K.B.]

On the day I do encoding, but its more like an hr or 2 once or twice a week.

[Dargason]

I did this a few months ago... having the Sage server on a separate machine has made everything run much more smoothly.

For the server, I have an Intel i5-750 with 4GB Ram. I don't recall the MB model, but I don't think it's available anymore anyway. The power supply is 480W I think. I ran Win8 for a while (to check out storage spaces) but this weekend I re-installed windows7.

I use a cablecard tuner (Hauppauge DCR-2650) with SageDCT, and I have 2 extenders.

I don't use Handbrake (and I'm not sure what Clown is?) but I use the built-in transcoder capabilities occasionally, and of course I run Comskip. These are really the only things that use much CPU, and so far I haven't noticed any performance issues.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by J.K.B.

On the day I do encoding, but its more like an hr or 2 once or twice a week.

I've been an Intel guy since Core2's were available, but with that encoding load, you could grab either Intel or AMD and be satisfied I suppose.

I do see that you have Microcenter there in Houston. Honestly, I would probably walk in there and grab this;

http://microcenter.com/product/35458...oxed_Processor

and a motherboard compatible with it and your existing memory. These newer Intel processors have the video adapter built-in for those non-gaming machines (paired with the correct motherboard), and they work just fine.

I would also recommend Windows 7 64bit, unless you are using Firewire tuning, in which case you need to stick with 32bit (you will not be able to use 8GB of ram with 32bit Windows).

[J.K.B.]

Thanks, I'll probably stick with the i5 as suggested b/c intel is the only thing I have ever had. Just didn't know if there would be any significant benefit in AMD since I would only be running a fraction of the programs, but since an i5 runs it fine and isn't overly expensive, I like that route.

I'll have some other questions about how best to get it up and running on the new machine as I have had to move some folders around and sage won't recognize/find those bluray directories anymore. I think I might be better off starting clean from scratch just so it picks up everything, but then I'd have to set up all my favorites again and I'm not sure what exactly would happen to all mu current recordings... This conversation would probably belong more in one of the other sections, but I'm open to any thoughts or options for making the transition.

Thanks