Trying to future proof a computer (at least for the next six months)

[yuccabrevifolia]

Hello all. I have an old dual core desktop that I am retiring, and thought I might buy a small form factor case for it and build a dedicated satellite receiver with Windows.

I had a USB DVBWorld tuner that was less than stellar software-wise last year. It had trouble picking up anything HD when attached to my Mac dual core at 1.6 GHz using the included software and did not have blind scan. I don't want to make the same mistake again this time.

I was wondering what I should be looking for in the currently available cards? Is PCIe necessary? I know that this next is really like looking into a crystal ball, but are there any emerging standards that I should be paying particular attention to when evaluating cards (such as 16/32APSK)?

Finally, is a 2 GHz dual core with 2 gig of fast ram good enough to run something like this as a dedicated box? This board supports overclocking, so I could probably squeeze a bit more out of it if I had to. I don't really use DVRs so the main purpose would simply be decoding and displaying what's up there. Is XP or Win7 better for this application? I don't intend on doing much with this box except accessing satellite and maybe installing a BluRay drive in it.

Any opinions appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[DRCars]

As far as a computer, unless you buy something terribly cheap it would be hard to get a new desktop computer that would not handle the stuff out there today. Even the high bitrate h.264 feeds shouldn't be a problem on any relatively new desktop/tower. Don't know about the future tho.

That said, when I was in the market for a new computer, I did look quite closely at what was available in the low price category. All I wanted was something to watch internet and satellite video so wasn't willing to pay much for it.

The reason I chimed in on this is that I just recently needed to replace my old HPZ556 Pentium 3.0 GHz machine (power supply bellied up) and was extremely worried about getting a new computer. I bought a low-priced ($440 - Walmart including tax) Acer Aspire X3400G Mutimedia PC. It has a dual core 3.1 GHz AMD Athlon II processor with NVidia Geforce 9200 graphics (Mpeg2 and h.264 DXVA) and 4 GB of memory. It is not very expandable at all (I think it only has 1 available PCIe slot). That accounts for much of why it so inexpensive. However, its small form factor is welcome in the entertainment center and since I have a DVBWorld 2104C USB receiver I didn't need that slot, yet, but the 9 USB ports are coming in handy.

There was no need to worry. Even without DXVA on high bit-rate (SR 29270) 4:2:2 video (Elecard) the CPU usage is maxing out at about 60% and it is NOT running at maximum frequency. It is running at 60-80% of its maximum frequency which would be more like 40-50% CPU usage. These later CPUs like the AMD Athlon II (as well as Intel) lower the CPU frequency to as low as about 1/3 of the maximum frequency (in this case ~ 1 intead of 3.1 GHz) in order to use less power and generate less heat. Believe me that is a big improvement over the old Pentium hyper-threaded CPUs that sounded like jet planes taking off when the CPU was loaded. Not knowing about the CPU frequency manipulation, I was a little worried at first when I was seeing 20-30% CPU usage on low bit-rate SD feeds. Then I found out about and noticed this power saving feature. That 20-30% was only at about 1/3 maximum CPU frequency which made it more like less than 10% if it were at maximum frequency.

Anyway, to do a little future-proofing try to get something with at least dual core and 3 GHz or better and a video card with DXVA (if you want to hedge your bet).

I'll shut up now,

DRCars

 

[Larry1]

PCIe seems to be the interface (for internal) of choice by the manufacturers. Also Sata3 and USB3 are getting more and more support from the hardware makers. Both of these increase the transfer rates over the previous revisions. This would make operations like copying to an external hard disk much faster.