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nidaime · 2012-11-08, 06:37

Hi,
I am planning to buy an old Dell Optiplex 745 the CPU above and a Radeon X1300. It has DDR2 ram 2GB. Is that going to be enough of a system to use play 1080p movies flawlessly? I am open to changing my video card since I know its not the best card out there.. What card should I used? Nvidia GT240? I am planning to use Ubuntu as the host system and I know Radeon drivers are not that very well supported compared to Nvidia in linux.. basically I want to know what's everybody's experience on playing 1080p. The forum has mixed info on this.

Thanks,

jackh · 2012-11-08, 18:25

With Linux, that CPU is more than enough. And 2GB of RAM is plenty as well.

I have a similar machine, CPU is an Intel G530, with 2GB RAM, and a GT210 video card; running Linux Mint. Flawless in glorious HD!!

nidaime · 2012-11-10, 06:47

thanks for the answer. I have bought the optiplex 745. Its 100$ at a surplus shop. Very good for XBMC. It has windows vista on it... and it is still good! What OS do you suggest for running xbmc? Ubuntu 12.04? 1080p x264 video is very flawless. utilization is about 40% max... I am also making it my download server.. SHould be good. BF is coming soon and I might add some ram sticks to make it 4GB.

IsleOfMan · (This post was last modified: 2012-11-19, 23:42 by IsleOfMan.)

Is your Dell Optiplex 745 the Ultra-SFF (i.e. no expansion slots, laptop-size HDD, external PSU) or one of the SFF/Destkop versions? I'm curious to see how it handles 1080p Video Decoding BEFORE you make any hardware changes, ESPECIALLY if it's the Ultra-SFF version. I'm curious if the C2D @ 2.13 GHz can handle software decoding of 1080p h.264, VC1, and AVC files on its own in the long term as you possibly amass some higher bitrate files. Have you tried any known taxing test files (Flying Birds, aka KillSample)? If it can handle those, that's great news. I'm pretty sure it should handle 720p h.264 without any problem. I'm always looking for low-cost XBMC clients (off-lease, corporate recycled, and the like). Knowing of a few that can software-decode 1080p without adding a video card would be good knowledge to have on hand.

$100 is what I'd consider the high-end for an older PC like that, even though it is C2D with a decent bit of RAM and a PCI-E slot. Check Craigslist in your area, you can often find older P4s in the $30-$50 range, usually off-lease or recycled from office use. If you know the models that pack PCI-E, you can often put together an XBMC box with a GeForce 210 or similar for right at $50 (excluding IR receiver).

I just snagged a decked-out Dell Dimension 4700c w/ P4 3.2 GHz HT, 2gb DDR2, 250gb SATA HDD, and DVD-RW for $30... it even has an on-board Optical SPDIF jack making it easy to get DD and DTS out to my older non-HDMI AVR. Coupled with a GeForce G100 for $9 and an IR receiver I have laying around I'm only out $39. I'll probably install OpenElec 2.0 on a USB and find some other use for the 250gb HDD.

For anyone interested, I've developed a list of 60-70 corporate-type PCs of the P4 and early C2D era along with whether they have PCI-E or not. PM me and I can shoot you the xls file. If there's much interest, maybe I can host it on Google Docs and we can crowd-source some more pertinent info (on-board inputs/outputs, Gigabit Ethernet, optical drive form factor, proprietary PSU, etc).

nidaime · 2012-11-20, 06:56

When you say h.264 is that the same as playing an x264 file?

The optiplex is small form factor with no HDD expansion slot so I might dish out the CDRom for the 3TB HDD I am planning to attach it with.

Could you send me a link for Flying Birds and KillSample? I'd love to test my C2D with that one.

IsleOfMan · (This post was last modified: 2012-11-20, 16:29 by IsleOfMan.)

h.264 = x264. x264 is the open source library for encoding using the h.264standard.

This thread will help you find the killasample, which is the birds.

Just to be clear, could you look at the Optiplex 745 spec sheet and let us know which one you have? Does it have a full 5.25" Optical drive, or is it a slim/laptop size drive?

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/pro...hspecs.pdf

It seems there are a flood of the Ultra Small Form Factor models suddenly available, many of which are probably retired from Point-of-Sale use. Since you mention yours having Radeon x1300 graphics, I'm pretty sure you have either the Desktop of the SFF, not the USFF. If the USFF version can play 1080p h.264 (even if not the highest bitrates) with software video decoding it would make it a great candidate for use on screens where no AVR or surround sound is needed... or even then, SPDIF audio could be added with an inexpensive USB audio adapter.

nidaime · 2012-11-21, 02:57

(2012-11-20, 16:28)IsleOfMan Wrote: h.264 = x264. x264 is the open source library for encoding using the h.264standard.

This thread will help you find the killasample, which is the birds.

Just to be clear, could you look at the Optiplex 745 spec sheet and let us know which one you have? Does it have a full 5.25" Optical drive, or is it a slim/laptop size drive?

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/pro...hspecs.pdf

It seems there are a flood of the Ultra Small Form Factor models suddenly available, many of which are probably retired from Point-of-Sale use. Since you mention yours having Radeon x1300 graphics, I'm pretty sure you have either the Desktop of the SFF, not the USFF. If the USFF version can play 1080p h.264 (even if not the highest bitrates) with software video decoding it would make it a great candidate for use on screens where no AVR or surround sound is needed... or even then, SPDIF audio could be added with an inexpensive USB audio adapter.

I have the full 5.25" optical drive and the 3.5" HDD. I am going to play h264 once I go home..

IsleOfMan · 2012-11-21, 17:07

(2012-11-21, 02:57)nidaime Wrote: I have the full 5.25" optical drive and the 3.5" HDD. I am going to play h264 once I go home..

You have what Dell calls the "Desktop" version.

The "Small Form Factor" looks very similar, but is about 2/3 the width, 2/3 the height, and uses a laptop-size optical drive. It does still have a half-height PCI-E slot.

The "Ultra-Small Form Factor" doesn't look anything like the rest of the line, is silver with a laptop drive at the very top edge of the case, has no expansion slots of any kind, but does have DVI output. I'm really interested in how one of these with the C2D will handle 1080p content... how yours performs should be a good indicator.

nidaime · 2012-11-28, 03:35

Does the GT210 have capability to fully decode HD content + DTS sound?

HellDiverUK · (This post was last modified: 2012-11-28, 11:22 by HellDiverUK.)

I ran two Optiplex machines as HTPCs in the past.

One was a SFF GX620 (Pentium D 3GHz with 2GB RAM and a HD5450 low profile card). It ran just about OK, but it was noisy due to the heat from the CPU, so the fan was running hard all the time.

Replaced with a SFF Optiplex 755 (Core2Duo E6550 2.33GHz, 4GB RAM, and the same HD5450). It ran perfectly, was quiet, no problems. Only replaced it with my current miniITX machine as the capacitors on the motherboard of the Dell were leaking, so stability went to pot.

If you bought a 745, check the capacitors for leaking very carefully, every one of the 25 745 machines I have at work have leaking capacitors, just under 20 of them aren't even booting now.

nss/ · 2012-11-28, 18:05

In my first HTPC I run a c2d 6300 which is a 1.8GHz processor and an ati 5450. Rendering method is set to auto and DVXA2 enabled. Runs great on Windows 7. Menus and GUI are really smooth.

I was looking at doing the same as you with an old Dell off ebay and putting a new graphics card in, but in the end I needed the small form factor of the mini itx..