Oppinions on upgrade

[incognito]

Hey guys, just after a few opinions on how this will work for VMC.

Currently im running a p4 3.0 with 1.5 gig ram, fx5500, audigy and a leadtech dtv-1000s
Everything runs ok plays HD TV but ive noticed when watch HD my cpu usage is up around 50%.

Im starting to think it might be a good time to upgrade and have had a bit of a look around been considering an intel E5200, asus p5kpl motherboard, 2gig ram and 9400gt.

Do you think this is going to be worthwhile basis for a media pc... im hoping iw ould be able to record 2 hd channels and maybe watch some hd recorded content, maybe even bluray in the future?

Thanks guys.

[dwebkombi]

Looks ok to me. I would invest in a good dual tuner, HVR2200 would be good choice. Also the biggest single HDD you can afford to keep noise and heat down.

I am not sure about your vid card but I reckon its always better to go fanless.

[davomate]

Originally Posted by incognito

Hey guys, just after a few opinions on how this will work for VMC.

Currently im running a p4 3.0 with 1.5 gig ram, fx5500, audigy and a leadtech dtv-1000s
Everything runs ok plays HD TV but ive noticed when watch HD my cpu usage is up around 50%.

Im starting to think it might be a good time to upgrade and have had a bit of a look around been considering an intel E5200, asus p5kpl motherboard, 2gig ram and 9400gt.

Do you think this is going to be worthwhile basis for a media pc... im hoping iw ould be able to record 2 hd channels and maybe watch some hd recorded content, maybe even bluray in the future?

Thanks guys.

From my experience, the biggest impact on CPU performance when watching HD was to upgrade my video card from a Nvidia 6000 series to an 8000 series (8600). The built-in acceleration shaved 35% off my CPU utilisation. Make sure you get a model that supports HDCP (older cards did not include the required chip) otherwise you will not be able to watch blu-ray at full definition. I have a slower (2.2GHz) CPU and only 1GB RAM, and I can record up to 4 HD channels at once with mimimal CPU. Recording (not watching) just copies the video stream from the tuner to your hard drive and does not load your computer much. Similarly, most of the load for playing Blu-Ray is handled by video cards these days. In summary, just upgrade your video card, the rest should be fine for media center duties. You might want to add a big hard drive to record all that HD TV!

[incognito]

Hey guys thanks for the info, Im almost thinking of holding off a little bit till i have the spare money to also get a new hdd, proper htpc case bluray player and other bits and pieces, do the lot at once and start from fresh.