How's this computer for a HTPC?

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Ruffian998

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 18, 2004
Messages
211
So I have a computer thats just sitting around collecting dust doing nothing at all and I've been needing a DVR for a while. Anyways, here are the specs:

Athlon 64 3000+
Asus A8V
1gb PC3200 (2x512mb)
Geforce 6800 128mb AGP
Audigy Sound card
WD 120gb 7200rpm IDE
Seagate 160gb 7200rpm IDE

I plan on adding in either an ATI 550 or 650 tv tuner card. Now I have any version of Vista available (I'm a student) so I can use that as my media center if you all recommend it. I would probably use Home Premium but with only having 1gb of memory I wonder how it will tax my system especially with recording/watching going on. If you all dont think I will achieve good results with this let me know and I'll find a way to get Windows MCE. Also, I was wondering do I even need a soundcard for this machine if all audio will be going out of the TV tuner?
 
I would be a little concerned as well with the 1Gb of memory (you'll want 2Gb for smoooooth Vista operation)....especially if you intend to be watching/recording HD content.

...but...I'm using a very similiar config for my HTPC (3000+ Athlon64, 1Gb DDR, Geforce 6600GT, 80Gb WD 7200rpm IDE, 300Gb WD 7200rpm IDE) and it works great with MCE 2005. I have 2each Hauppauge 1600 dual ATSC/NTSC tuners. I am only using the 2 ATSC tuners for over-the-air digital broadcasts (I do not have cableTV anymore but it worked just as well when I did have it)...and again, it works well.

The only time it chokes is when I try and record HD while streaming another HD content to my Xbox360. If I'm dealing with standard def content...its as smooth as butter.

Yes...you will need a soundcard. The audio output from the TV tuner still routes through your soundcard.
 
RebuL said:
Yes...you will need a soundcard. The audio output from the TV tuner still routes through your soundcard.
Click to expand...
Thats only if you gets a softencoding tuner card; any decent tuner does audio over the PCI/PCIe bus.

Any hardware tuner will do this so it's not much of an issue, you can stick with onboard sound or go with a sound card; it doesn't much matter cause the tuner won't be directly needing it for processing the audio stream.

Other then that those specs look fine.
 
Yeah it will only be SD, no HD. With that in mind, how would you all think that Vista Home Premium would work with 1gb? I wouldn't use any fancy gadgets or anything like that. I could bump the memory up to 1.5gb overall but that would require a trip home and bumping the memory to 2T timings.
 
Ruffian998 said:
Yeah it will only be SD, no HD. With that in mind, how would you all think that Vista Home Premium would work with 1gb? I wouldn't use any fancy gadgets or anything like that. I could bump the memory up to 1.5gb overall but that would require a trip home and bumping the memory to 2T timings.
Click to expand...

Should be fine, Vista is actually not the memory hog its portrayed as. Instead if keeps more programs stored in local memory than XP in comparison. It will dump those as it needs space for others. Also, depending on how far away from home you are then it might be worth it to buy a cheap $25 stick from Newegg or some such.
 
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