[rashid420]

I wanted to build a PC for XBMC and wanted to ask if Intel CELERON Dual Core would be enough. I mean not "okay", but capable of doing 1080P H264 MKV decoding. The CELERON saves some money I can put toward a better graphics card.

Thanks much.

[miked2024]

every message i've seen indicates that to achieve 1080P h.264-mkv playback w/o dropped frames, you need to be looking at 3GHz, e.g. c2d e8400. if you're comfortable overclocking than you can get by with a lesser CPU oc'd to 3.0 GHz. every recommendation i've seen is based upon the benchmark file, known as the "killa sample". you can search for that here on these forums and find hundreds of posts discussing this issue.

right now all video acceleration is done on the CPU and so you're better off getting a decent video card and a better CPU. i have an nVidia 8400GS w/ 256MB RAM onboard (<$30) and an e8400 and only drop 3-5 frames on startup and none at all afterwards.

[BLKMGK]

I can answer this... NO. I can say this because I tried it - hey read that whole thread and learn a bunch! I overclocked a Celeron dual core to 3ghz and it dropped frames pretty good on the Killa' sample and on some of my BD rips that I have encoded. It was also noticeably slower to compile SVN XBMC too which was a surprise to me. I have always found Celeron to be a good deal and overclocked the snot out of them on many occasions so it was disappointing to see that I couldn't get the performance needed for this task. Perhaps if I had played with voltages to clock it higher it would have done better but from the number of frames I saw dropping and the big diff in compile times I'm not sure how fast I'd have had to clock it.

Spend a few more bucks on a 2.6ghz C2D in a 45nm FAB process and overclock that to 3ghz - you'll be better off.

[olympia]

Spend a few more bucks on a 2.6ghz C2D in a 45nm FAB process and overclock that to 3ghz - you'll be better off.

BLKMGK, could you recall, that how many dropped frames did you have on the stock speed (2.66GHz) of your E7300? As I posted already in some threads, for me overclocking is not necessary on ASUS P5N7A-VM with E7300 to play killa sample without dropped frames. Personally I don't really agree with chasing the 3GHz border!

Moreover, for real world 1080p movies (I mean anything else than killa sample and planet earth, from where it is come from), you could even underclock it.... but this is only a sidenote, as killa sample is so standard here to abandon it...

[BLKMGK]

It was more than 50 at stock speed - it was most certainly not just the standard handful at the beginning of the clip. It dropped frames in multiple spots during playback and it visually stuttered some. No way would I underclock it!

I will point out this though -> http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=43075 which could certainly have been an issue as I do not recall what the CPU percentages were saying. I may be playing some high def rips on that box soon and will check to see if the % of usage are even across cores.

IMO 3ghz makes sense as no one but you seems to have found a slower CPU capable of playing that clip smoothly. We can argue again about that clip but if I'm going to advise someone on what CPU to buy there's no way I'm going to tell them something that could leave them on the edge of good playback on heavy content. It's one thing to spend another $20-$40 on a CPU, it's quite another to have to buy another for $100+!

[rashid420]

every message i've seen indicates that to achieve 1080P h.264-mkv playback w/o dropped frames, you need to be looking at 3GHz, e.g. c2d e8400. if you're comfortable overclocking than you can get by with a lesser CPU oc'd to 3.0 GHz. every recommendation i've seen is based upon the benchmark file, known as the "killa sample". you can search for that here on these forums and find hundreds of posts discussing this issue.

right now all video acceleration is done on the CPU and so you're better off getting a decent video card and a better CPU. i have an nVidia 8400GS w/ 256MB RAM onboard (<$30) and an e8400 and only drop 3-5 frames on startup and none at all afterwards.

First, what I'm hearing is not to try and save money in the wrong place or I'll regret it. I get it ;-) What's 50 more bucks in the larger scheme of things.

So this is the thing. Maybe I should just but a DELL, get a good deal with monitor and everything. So you mentioned nVidia 8400GS. How does this compare with the onboard Intel XD4500 that XBMC faq recommends? If it's good that'll just be super.

Second, I have never heard anyone including FAQs say anything about the system memory. Does it matter if I have 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB? That'll tell me where to spend money. I mean if I can do with 1GB I'll have Dell put the 8400GS for me instead.

Thanks.

[miked2024]

AFAIK, the 4500 isn't supported by Atlantis. it requires a newer kernel and X and a bunch of other stuff.

looking down the road, the 4500 should be golden because intel has released their video driver to the open source community. right now, you'd have to jump through a lot of hoops just to get the driver installed, and it still might not work with XBMC.

i really wanted to go with an intel mobo w/ the 4500HD chipset and a slower CPU, but reading here discouraged me from that plan. allegedly Atlantis +1 is going to support that combo, but who knows.

[mr_raider]

So this is the thing. Maybe I should just but a DELL, get a good deal with monitor and everything. So you mentioned nVidia 8400GS. How does this compare with the onboard Intel XD4500 that XBMC faq recommends? If it's good that'll just be super.

If you get a Dell, you get a Windows license, and Vista and XP have no issues running 1080p h264 on low end hardware since they all have access to GPU acceleration.

If you choose that route, there are better options out there than XBMC live.

[BLKMGK]

If you get a Dell, you get a Windows license, and Vista and XP have no issues running 1080p h264 on low end hardware since they all have access to GPU acceleration.

If you choose that route, there are better options out there than XBMC live.

I do not believe that XBMC accelerates using those drivers on Winders either so that makes no sense.

I have an Intel video chipset onboard my current system - and an NVIDIA card. I'm not so hot with Linux and the Intel driver install proved to be a PITA so I slapped in a cheap NVIDIA card and never looked back. NVIDIA performance appears to be spanking Intel and NVIDIA has accelerated drivers available. I see NVIDIA doing hardware accel before Intel, dunno' where ATI will end up.

This build -> http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Public...er=9999386 WORKS! However, it requires updates that do NOT exist on the Live! CD so you would be forced to do a little work and learning. I am currently having issues with 2channel stereo sound over HDMI but it works great for others so it is doable. <shrug> Check the pricetag on that and compare it to your proposed Dell build....

Memory, 2gig is plenty and possibly overkill. No sense in going higher than that right now.

[rashid420]

I'm going to hurry up slowly and simply build a machine with Dual Core, at least 2.6Ghz CPU, 2GB RAM and at least NVidia 8400GS, and a good wireless network card.

I plan to do XBMC live with USB, so no need for DVD drive or HD at this time. If wireless doesn't work to well for HD, then so be it.

Thanks folks.

[mr_raider]

Choose your USB wireless carefully. Linux driver support is spotty at best. I had to use ndiswrapper for my Realtek USB n stick.

[rashid420]

I meant BOOT from USB not for networking. I'll have a PCI Network Card in there.

But first, I need to hack my used xbox :-)