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| Thread ID: 62066 | 2005-09-25 23:24:00 | How Much would a graphics card upgrade affect a Media Centre PC | noone (22) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 390878 | 2005-09-28 07:43:00 | Ok, then a faster processor is where you will get most of the benefit. Ripping is extremly CPU intensive, extra ram or HDD won't improve things much with those specs you already have. If you can spring for it go for a new MB and low end AMD64 than you can hell overclock, but this will cost you $350. |
Battleneter (60) | ||
| 390879 | 2005-09-28 07:51:00 | If i dont buy the new CPU , how much with extremly good cooling could i overclock an AMD XP to | noone (22) | ||
| 390880 | 2005-09-28 08:24:00 | The XP2800 won't overclock a lot further on Air. You would probably get a few hundred more megahertz depending on the core with something like a Thermaltake 12 or a Zalaman7000 both $60 ish. Just not sure its worth the time doing. To possibly get a good overclock you would need water cooling which is not cost effective (may as well buy an AMD 64). |
Battleneter (60) | ||
| 390881 | 2005-09-28 08:37:00 | i am considering water cooling ( there is a thread floating around ) , this is becuase of the Overclock thing and the noise of the computer - this will not be solved with a 64 | noone (22) | ||
| 390882 | 2005-09-28 08:48:00 | But its not worth the cost to do a Athlon XP. Some of the nastiest water cooling kits are around $200, for $350 you can get a AMD 64 that will kick its ass all over the place, see my point? | Battleneter (60) | ||
| 390883 | 2005-09-28 08:57:00 | yea , the kit is was plannig on getting is $200 , i will start to look at the 64 but becuase of the high price i am going to keep a open mind bout overclocking | noone (22) | ||
| 390884 | 2005-09-28 09:05:00 | why i think i need a upgrade - When i am recording and watching it lags You haven't answered the question about using Windows Media Centre, after a bit more digging I don't think that card is supported in WMC? So are you using the software that came with the card? I don't think it has a hardware mepg2 encoder in which case it will be hammering your CPU. If you want a good solution I would suggest coughing up $190 for a Hauppauge PVR-150 and you shouldn't have any problems with time shifting live TV. Try Computer Lounge at www.computerlounge.co.nz |
BIFF (1) | ||
| 390885 | 2005-09-28 09:55:00 | oh sorry , i checked the microsoft website and it didnt seem that this card supported WMC so we are using windows XP Pro , with the supplied software ( Winfast PVC ) does the Hauppauge PVR-150 have a hardware encoder , if it does then i will not need to upgrade to a Amd 64 , will I ? Also could i use the old tv turner and then beable to record two things at the same time etc |
noone (22) | ||
| 390886 | 2005-09-28 10:23:00 | oh sorry , i checked the microsoft website and it didnt seem that this card supported WMC so we are using windows XP Pro , with the supplied software ( Winfast PVC ) does the Hauppauge PVR-150 have a hardware encoder , if it does then i will not need to upgrade to a Amd 64 , will I ? Also could i use the old tv turner and then beable to record two things at the same time etc Yep, due to the encoding being done in hardware it'll use all of about 15% CPU to encode. My first media center was a 1GHz Pentium 3 and was fine, so an XP2800 will chew through the task. You should be able to use both cards at once, however you should be careful about tuning the codec used by the DV2000 as Metla has suggested, as picking a very high compression rate will load up the CPU big time. Personally after making the shift to my hauppague card I am now using my other 2 software capture cards as paperweights as they were just such fussy things that I wouldn't dare fart near them if I was recording something precious due to dropped frames and audio sync problems. As I slapped my PVR-150 straight into my Microsoft Media Centre I didn't even look at the software that came with it, so I'm not sure if it comes with a MPEG2 decoder (aka DVD software). I would choose carefully the DVD software that you use, as time shifting will bring out any problems in the decoder (ie jumping back 8 seconds 3 times, forward 8 times to avoid ad breaks etc). I would personally recommend the Nvidia DVD decoder, but it's not free (very few mpeg2 codecs are due to it being licenced) ffdshow is an open source one, but it's CPU heavy, might work out ok though -you can certainly try it. If you want to see which mpeg2 codec(s) you have installed you can use a free tool from microsoft called deccheck.exe a google will turn it up :) |
BIFF (1) | ||
| 390887 | 2005-09-28 23:16:00 | Should i get the 150 or the 150MCE ? | noone (22) | ||
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