[Haggy]

Power consumption, resulting in a lower bill, less fans, thus less noise. Additionally the atom is the only CPU you would stick in one of those fancy superslim cases like the Silverstone LC19. The celeron alone smokes as much power as the whole ion system.

My 2 cents

[xbmcforme]

... Detailed VDPAU info and supported chips can be found in the nvidia driver readme: http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Li...dix-h.html

How do you determine what chipset your video card has?

[Haggy]

wikipedia for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce

[Bahndit]

Maybe those links aren't as "public" as I thought... Basically the only difference between the two is the cpu/mobo choice:
Celeron system:
Zotac GF9300-D-E $139.99
Celeron E1400 2.0GHz Dual-core $49.99

ION System:
Zoltac IONITX-D-E $189.99

Pick your own case, hdd, memory & media drive.

Virtually the same price, $190 for mobo/gpu/cpu, but it seems like the Celeron/9300 system kicks the butt of the Atom/9400 system...

Thoughts?

Sion28,
I have built XBMC machines that you are looking at doing and I have to say that I am a big fan of the ION board over the celeron route if you are looking to build a pure HTPC setup. However, if you are going to try and go the dual purpose route then the Celeron is probably a better choice because as you said the Celeron is a lot better CPU than an Atom. That said I would really look into the ION route. I have been very impressed with the two Zotac IONITX boards that I have. Plus like Haggy said the Ion boards use a fraction of the power.

[xbmcforme]

How do you determine what chipset your video card has?

Haggy, let me rephrase. How do you determine the "chips" (ie: G84, G86, G92, G94, G96, GT200, G98, MCP77, MCP78, MCP79, MCP7A). From what little I've found some cards are the same family but have different chips (like the 9600GT can be found with either G92 or G94 chips).

[Haggy]

Well to determine exactly what chipset is used you can look for a certain clock/shader speed. For example the 8400GS exists both in an old (G84?) and new G98 revision - whereas only the G98 has VDPAU ability. You can easily spot those cards which have a clock speed of 567MHz whereas the older one has 400MHz

Look at those tables on the wikipedia page, they should list every nvidia chipset ever built. I understand that nvidia's naming/marketing scheme is crap and confusing

/Haggy

[Metamorph]

Any suggestions in change i stream all my media have gigabit router with cat 6 cables.

silverstone HTPC Case
Vista Ultimate 64 Bit
Gigabit Motherboard
2.6ghz Core2Duo
8GB OCZ SLI-Ready Edition DDR2 6400
300GB HD
9400 GT Nvidia
Lite-On Dvd-Rom Drive
2TB NAS (Network Attached Storage)

[almostalive]

I think I've figured out on what I would like to get.
Newegg.com public wish list
Any foreseeable problems with this setup?? or any recommended changes?? Right now it looks all good to me but other users input is welcomed.

[HwyXingFrog]

Ok, guys, just read through it, been Using XBMC since my Original Xbox and have two Geforce 8200 mATX boards with 4850e and 5050e CPU's.

I really want to upgrade, and be tiny, and super low power.

All I need is Mobo/CPU/Case/Power/Ram and maybe run off USB or 2.5 inch.


Anybody able to do full 1080p with "Killer Sample" or most common 1080p .mkv rips using XBMC Live (Or XBMC in Ubuntu) and the Zotac IONITX-C and just have it work out of the box without hassle.

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=26670BD7659

And then I'll probably get this super small case:

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=25410AC2154

I stream everything over my network, so I don't need anything special for my XBMC player.

I'm probably ordering them both on Thursday.

Thanks.

[Frozone]

Yes, that would do. Newer 8400GS cards are based on the G98 chipset series which provide full decoding support for h264, vc1 (wmv) and mpeg2.

readme: http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Li...dix-h.html

So when I read this readme right: ION does only "complete acceleration" on h264. VC1 and mpeg2 are "Partial acceleration" (What does this mean?).

--> Have to go for G98 chipset instead of ION. :o


EDIT: Just found in WIkipedia, that ION is "MCP79". So the nvidia readme says taht it should accelerate everything like the 8400GS? Or is this en error? I am getting confuesed.
I can´t find a Info at NVIDIA which chips are on ION (9400m) and on 9300m. To know if both can acalerate everything.

[Haggy]

ION is based on MCP - so it has FULL acceleration for all three codecs.

[Frozone]

ION is based on MCP - so it has FULL acceleration for all three codecs.

OK, thats perfect. And the 9300M.
Because then I could by the a mini-itx 9300M with an E5200 to have some more cpu to get AEON running well, and have some extra power for other stuff.

[Haggy]

Please read - i thought you've already been there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_9_S..._9M_Series

It's G98 based, thus full acceleration. Tbh: full acceleration or not is absolutely unimportant. even partial acceleration does the hard job on the gpu - so any cpu will do.

[Frozone]

Please read - i thought you've already been there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_9_S..._9M_Series

It's G98 based, thus full acceleration. Tbh: full acceleration or not is absolutely unimportant. even partial acceleration does the hard job on the gpu - so any cpu will do.

Sorry my fould. I was looking only at the description, and couldn´t see the chip. But more down there is a table.
So thx for ur patience with me.
Now I only have to decide if I need the more power of an E5200 > Atom 330

[tstack77]

Because then I could by the a mini-itx 9300M with an E5200 to have some more cpu to get AEON running well, and have some extra power for other stuff.

Is it confirmed that the dual-core Atom 330 on the newer zotac boards WILL lag/stutter on AEON?