Currently I'm running an AMD X2 3800 system on an nForce4 motherboard. I've got a 320gb HD and 2 Hauppauge PVR 150s as my capture cards. I'm still having some difficulty with Mpg streambuffers in IVTV overfilling if I"m encoding to xvid and recording at the same time (or if mythfilldatabase) is running while recording. I'm not trying to fix that anymore, I'm simply gonna move on and select new hardware that is not prone to the PCI latency issues that the Nforce4 boards seem to have.

I've decided to sell the motherboard in my Windows PC, and migrate this mobo/cpu to my windows box. I'll be buying new motheboard/cpu/ram to put into my mythbox and am thinking to go with a Conroe based system as I've heard nothing but good things about them when it comes to their strength at media encoding.

I had originally selected the Asus P5B-E as my new platform but the salesperson at my local shop suggested perhaps looking at the Asus P5B-VM ($152.84) or an Asus P5B-Plus ($168.84) as they usually carry both of these, and the P5B-E would be a special order.

Looking at these two I think that the -VM is a better option (if it's going to work properly). It has the required 2 PCI slots that i need for my tuners. It has onboard video (I have no idea what the support is like for this video though - I suppose that's one of my questions), and it's cheaper.

I will be "upgrading" to the R5F1 (I already am running F1 on my existing system, will be doing a backup and auto-upgrade on the new system).

Any advice suggestions/concerns/etc that anyone can offer would be nice. I'd like to not buy the wrong board. Is there a different motherboard altogether that is recommended?


Part 2 of this is the CPU. I'm looking at either:

1. Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale Dual Core 1.8Ghz EM64-bit Socket 775 CPU, 800FSB, 2MB L2 - retail box for $150.84

2. Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe Dual Core 1.86Ghz EM64-bit Socket 775 CPU, 1066FSB, 2MB L2 - retail box $220.84

Will the extra FSB and L2 cache make much diff for me? I will not be doing any HD work on this box, stricly SD. But I would like to be able to encode files to Xvid at a pretty good pace. I'm not thinking that the jump between the two will be very high and I am inclined to suspect that both will perform well, and the E6300 will only offer me slightly higher performance in my scenario.

Again, I am very open to opinions/experiences/suggestions of others who are using either of these CPUs (or those who aren't, but know something).

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Currently Running:
Too lazy to update this with my current hardware, I'll redo it during my next install =)

Be careful to either not change the hostname (always a temptation with new hardware) or to fix up all occurrences of the old name in the DB dump.

If you do decide to change the name, keep a backup of your backup and be prepared to try a couple times to get it right.

I have decided to go with the following hardware. Hopefully things will go smoothly and a) Everything will work half decent out of the box and b) I won't do anything boneheaded (like trying to change my hostname midstream).

Asus P5B-plus
Intel Core 2 Duo e4300 (plan to run at a 1066 FSB instead of 800 as these tend to overclock well)
2 X Kingston 1GB PC2-5400 667Mhz DDR2 (May try and run it at 800mhz - we'll see)
Western Digital 320gb (moved from my existing system)
2 X Hauppauge PVR 150 (1 MCE & 1 non-MCE)
LG Dual Layer Burner
nVidia something or other fanless PCI-E card (Moving from existing system, I don't remember which card/chip it is specifically)

I'm quite excited for this system! I think it's gonna rip through Xvid encodes, especially if I push the CPU up towards the 2.6 Ghz mark. I've recently installed an extra 120mm fan in the case that this system will be living in, so I think I should be pretty good for cooling.

The 2nd benefit of this all is that I will be upgrading my day to day XP system from a single core 3200+ to a dual core 3800+. So that's nice too!

Does anyone know if the "intelfix" paramater is still required in R5F1 for mobo's running the ICH8? I've seen reference to R5E50 installs saying it's needed but I'm not sure if it's properly detected on it's own with F1.



I'll let you all know how things go!

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Currently Running:
Too lazy to update this with my current hardware, I'll redo it during my next install =)

rando, I don't know how you're coming on this, probably made some purchases by now. In case not, I recommend for the same price going to the core 2's with the 20 suffix, ie 6320 if available as they have double the L2 cache. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010340343%201051707842%201050722265&bop=And&CompareItemList=N82E16819115005%2CN82E16819115015

I look forward to an update on your experience with this as my myth/linux experiment is proving successful and looking forward to a little dual proc upgrade.

arri

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Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2GB Ram
MSI K8N Neo4-F NF4 939
ASUS N EN6200TC256/TD/64M
500gb SATA
1x Plextor PX-M402U
1x HD5000
R5.5 Upgrade from F27

I am considering upgrading my box again as well. I was looking at the E4300 and the Core 2 Quad 6600. Intel is going to be doing some price slashes about July 22nd and phasing out the E4300 model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core ... processors

I have already made my purchases, but dont yet have my install up and running.

I bought an E4300 and an Asus P5B-plus with 2gb of RAM. I've made a few weak attemps at installing (both to a 320gb PATA drive and a 200gb SATA drive) but have run into some issues with both. I've gotten to the point where I'm largely instlled, but have no ethernet support.

Due to my wedding coming up in Sept, my sisters wedding coming up in Aug, and a pile of other things that summer has dropped on my lap I simply haven't had time to fight with this lately.

Hopefully sooner rather than later I'll be giving it another stab. I went with the e4300 as it overclocks very well and very easily by all accounts that I've read elsewhere.

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Currently Running:
Too lazy to update this with my current hardware, I'll redo it during my next install =)

And soon, you'll meet the greatest challenge any linux box can find in domestic environs, WAF! First, she won't appreciate that box in the corner that you're always fiddling with, then she'll be depending on it when you decide to upgrade something that might break it, and she will care more than you do about the content on it.

Congrats and good luck.

arri

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Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2GB Ram
MSI K8N Neo4-F NF4 939
ASUS N EN6200TC256/TD/64M
500gb SATA
1x Plextor PX-M402U
1x HD5000
R5.5 Upgrade from F27

I'm guessing WAF is much like FAF (we have been living together for a year and a half already....).

The best part is that right now the system is completely non-functional and I'm heading out tomorrow on an 8 day canoe trip. She'll be on her own.

We haven't had an operational mythbox for the better part of a month now, but soon she won't even have me to download the things that we aren't recording. She's going to be very very bored this week, I can tell already =)

Oh well, not much I can do about that right now......

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Currently Running:
Too lazy to update this with my current hardware, I'll redo it during my next install =)

Rando, doesn't absence make the heart grow fonder

That means by the time your finished she will really appreciate it

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Girkers

Lets hope so!

_________________
Currently Running:
Too lazy to update this with my current hardware, I'll redo it during my next install =)