2014-02-25, 15:23
Hello all
I've been an XBMC user for many years and currently have an always on HTPC/NAS sat under our main TV that I'm looking to silence (or at least quieten down) and reduce power consumption. The specs of the current machine are as follows:
[CPU] Intel Celeron G1610
[Motherboard] MSI B75MA-P45
[Memory] Generic 4GB DDR-10600
[GPU] Gigabyte Nvidia G210
[Hard drives] 1xSamsung HD501LJ (for the system); 2x Samsung HD204UI (for data)
[TV Card] PCTV 73E
[Case] Silverstone GD06B
[Fans] 3x Silverstone 120mm with 5v mod
[OS] Gentoo
[TV sw] MythTV using XBMC-PVR (Frodo)
[AV amp] Sony STRDH820
To quieten/lower wattage I already plan to buy an SSD (probably a Sandisk Ultra Plus) and take out the HD501LJ and originally planned to replace the CPU/Motherboard with a Haswell solution (Pentium G3220 and ASRock H81M-HDS). Having researched into the state of Intel and VAAPI on Linux it doesn't look great. I've seen mentions online of people encountering green artifacts (macroblocking?) when using VAAPI and having very limited deinterlacing (though I understand this can be worked around using sse4-vaapi).
Can anyone give any advise on whether it's worth moving to Haswell (bearing in mind I'm not prepared to move away from Gentoo)? Deinterlacing is a must for me for use with UK TV (576i I believe). If VAAPI isn't stable enough at the moment, would the G3220 be able to display 1080p24 content and deinterlace 576i content in software? Are there any fixes in the pipeline for Gotham for Intel users?
Alternatively am I just better off replacing the gfx with a fanless GT610 for quietness and HD audio? If I got myself a fanless GT610 should I be expecting to see much higher system temperatures?
Many thanks in advance
Gavin
I've been an XBMC user for many years and currently have an always on HTPC/NAS sat under our main TV that I'm looking to silence (or at least quieten down) and reduce power consumption. The specs of the current machine are as follows:
[CPU] Intel Celeron G1610
[Motherboard] MSI B75MA-P45
[Memory] Generic 4GB DDR-10600
[GPU] Gigabyte Nvidia G210
[Hard drives] 1xSamsung HD501LJ (for the system); 2x Samsung HD204UI (for data)
[TV Card] PCTV 73E
[Case] Silverstone GD06B
[Fans] 3x Silverstone 120mm with 5v mod
[OS] Gentoo
[TV sw] MythTV using XBMC-PVR (Frodo)
[AV amp] Sony STRDH820
To quieten/lower wattage I already plan to buy an SSD (probably a Sandisk Ultra Plus) and take out the HD501LJ and originally planned to replace the CPU/Motherboard with a Haswell solution (Pentium G3220 and ASRock H81M-HDS). Having researched into the state of Intel and VAAPI on Linux it doesn't look great. I've seen mentions online of people encountering green artifacts (macroblocking?) when using VAAPI and having very limited deinterlacing (though I understand this can be worked around using sse4-vaapi).
Can anyone give any advise on whether it's worth moving to Haswell (bearing in mind I'm not prepared to move away from Gentoo)? Deinterlacing is a must for me for use with UK TV (576i I believe). If VAAPI isn't stable enough at the moment, would the G3220 be able to display 1080p24 content and deinterlace 576i content in software? Are there any fixes in the pipeline for Gotham for Intel users?
Alternatively am I just better off replacing the gfx with a fanless GT610 for quietness and HD audio? If I got myself a fanless GT610 should I be expecting to see much higher system temperatures?
Many thanks in advance
Gavin