400MHz HTPC?

G

grethor

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 1, 2004
Messages
188
I have these parts laying around:

AMD K6-2 400MHz
ASUS motherboard (forgot which one)
256 MB PC-133
ATI Radeon 8500LE
ATI TV-Wonder
ATI Remote-Wonder
60 gig maxtor drive

I'm wondering if i could build a decent HTPC with that setup? All i'm looking to do is play MP3s, watch DVDs, and use the tv-wonder to watch tv. Will the K6-2 be fast enough or do i need a different cpu-mobo-ram combo?
 
one of my mates up until recently when i built him a athlon xp system ran a 400mhz celeron and he played mp3's, watched DVD's and divX movies just fine on it and that was with 128mb ram, you should be fine with 256mb. Not sure how a k6 compares to a celeron, but i would think it would be the same general ballpark. Just put it in a nice little case and enjoy :)
 
I until recently had a Gateway Destination P2-400 with 256MB RAM and it ran fine. Only thing I ever had any issues with was when streaming Divx from my main machine, there would be choppiness occassional. Put the Divx on the hard drive and issue went away. *shrug* It worked great for me with an old ATi Rage Pro All in Wonder with 8MB (yes 8MB) of RAM. If you plan on recording though, get the PVR-x50. When I recorded, total skyrocket on CPU usage.
 
egon_dude said:
one of my mates up until recently when i built him a athlon xp system ran a 400mhz celeron and he played mp3's, watched DVD's and divX movies just fine on it and that was with 128mb ram, you should be fine with 256mb. Not sure how a k6 compares to a celeron, but i would think it would be the same general ballpark. Just put it in a nice little case and enjoy :)
Click to expand...
i have a similar setup like your friend just more ram. It works very well as a mp3 player and music server. The only problem i have is that when i watch dvds with software it stutters a lot and plays at a low fps. Movie encoder with xvid and ac3 tend to get out of sync. Does your friend have problems playing dvds?
 
Deathskythee said:
i have a similar setup like your friend just more ram. It works very well as a mp3 player and music server. The only problem i have is that when i watch dvds with software it stutters a lot and plays at a low fps. Movie encoder with xvid and ac3 tend to get out of sync. Does your friend have problems playing dvds?
Click to expand...


Yeah for 400mhz you might need a hardware DVD decoder, which I don't know if they even make anymore.
 
agentzero9 said:
Yeah for 400mhz you might need a hardware DVD decoder, which I don't know if they even make anymore.
Click to expand...

if anyone wants a DVD decoder card I know someone whose selling one...
 
I have a 300a celron o/c to 450mhz. 128mb RAM. 8mb ATI RAGE+ vid.
In linux ALL videos play great, dvd included. Only saw the processor go up to 80% in a DivX rez copy of a DVD. Guess linux just has better video code :D

Or it was just that extra 50mhz.
 
vxspiritxv said:
I have a 300a celron o/c to 450mhz. 128mb RAM. 8mb ATI RAGE+ vid.
In linux ALL videos play great, dvd included. Only saw the processor go up to 80% in a DivX rez copy of a DVD. Guess linux just has better video code :D

Or it was just that extra 50mhz.
Click to expand...
Linux has less overhead.... and the 50mz is ~12% more power :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top