I need some advice. I currently have this machine running Win7-64/XBMC v11. An older machine, but working fine:
AMD Athlon-64 x2 (Dual-Core)
- On-Board ATI Radeon HD 3200 (similar to HD2400) VGA-DVI-HDMI
- 2 gb ram and small HDD
- 400w PS
With DXVA2 on, works fine and can handle VIDEO_TS, 1080p .MKV, AC3, DTS. DXVA2 was the magic that helps this config (I assume by offloading a lot to GPU). I mainly like to play movies so you can’t really tell it’s not a real disc in a real stand-alone player ( high bitrate video and sound with all bit-streamed channels to AVR)
Thinking of swapping it out for this machine:
Intel Core-i3 2120 (Dual-Core, Quad-Threaded),
- On-Board Intel HD 2000 graphics VGA-HDMI
- 6gb RAM, 1gb HDD
- 280w PS
The question is … will the Intel 2000 work as good as the AMD-GPU setup? Or, do I need to drop in a AMD 5670/6670 and a power-supply upgrade? The reason I ask is because I’m reading about Intel 2000/3000/4000 XBMC-DXVA2 problems. My past experience is that DXVA2 just makes everything work better. I did notice that Windows Update is suggesting a driver update to WDDM1.1/1.2. I will likely install it or the latest from Intel.com (once I document my current version). I plan to go ahead and install XBMC v12.1 since it’s current stable.
The AVR and plasma (in this secondary room) are older, so I must use VGA (@ 720p) and SPDIF. However, I would also like it to be able to handle 1080p over HDMI later (without messing with the insides again) so I will also test final config with Living Room setup (with front HDMI Aux on Onkyo 607 setup).
AMD Athlon-64 x2 (Dual-Core)
- On-Board ATI Radeon HD 3200 (similar to HD2400) VGA-DVI-HDMI
- 2 gb ram and small HDD
- 400w PS
With DXVA2 on, works fine and can handle VIDEO_TS, 1080p .MKV, AC3, DTS. DXVA2 was the magic that helps this config (I assume by offloading a lot to GPU). I mainly like to play movies so you can’t really tell it’s not a real disc in a real stand-alone player ( high bitrate video and sound with all bit-streamed channels to AVR)
Thinking of swapping it out for this machine:
Intel Core-i3 2120 (Dual-Core, Quad-Threaded),
- On-Board Intel HD 2000 graphics VGA-HDMI
- 6gb RAM, 1gb HDD
- 280w PS
The question is … will the Intel 2000 work as good as the AMD-GPU setup? Or, do I need to drop in a AMD 5670/6670 and a power-supply upgrade? The reason I ask is because I’m reading about Intel 2000/3000/4000 XBMC-DXVA2 problems. My past experience is that DXVA2 just makes everything work better. I did notice that Windows Update is suggesting a driver update to WDDM1.1/1.2. I will likely install it or the latest from Intel.com (once I document my current version). I plan to go ahead and install XBMC v12.1 since it’s current stable.
The AVR and plasma (in this secondary room) are older, so I must use VGA (@ 720p) and SPDIF. However, I would also like it to be able to handle 1080p over HDMI later (without messing with the insides again) so I will also test final config with Living Room setup (with front HDMI Aux on Onkyo 607 setup).
