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C2D vs. Kuma for HTPC

M

medstudent23

n00b
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
19
Which is the better option for an HTPC to be a DVR and play HDTV/BLURAY etc.?

1) E4300 + 650i MB + 8600GT

or

2) Kuma 7750 + a 780g or nvidia matx board (to be purchased)

One will be my HTPC and the other will be an office pc.
 
The Kuma is a bit overkill for a HTPC, honestly. Grab a 45W cpu like the 4850e or 5050e with an 8200/8300 mobo like the Asus M3N78-VM or -EM. The onboard video is lots for HD playback and the dual core is enough to deal with anything else... but the low power draw is ideal for htpc because you can go extra quiet and not have the sound of turbine fans ruining your movie.
 
hmm... not so sure if thats the case nowadays... my htpc isn't any louder then the ticking of my wall clock and it can play gta4 or any other game for that matter....
 
If you go with a Mini-ITX 780g or 8200/9300 board you can get a low power sucking cpu and use DXVA capabilities from the onboad gpu to do all the HDTV decoding.
 
8200/8300 isn't really all that great with 1080i content. it displays but has telecine issues. Everyone recommends it because it allows more sound channels over hdmi than the ATI solution. Either get one on a board that supports 8 channel via optical or digital out, or with a better video card and use the hdmi port for audio.
 
Yea I realize the noise and heat will be a problem with these CPUs but I'm trying to work with what I already have rather than buying more stuff. I believe the e4300 is 65w and the kuma is 95watts. Is it really that big of a deal? I read that you need an ht3.0 capable and CPU anyways for the best picture quality.
 
The wattage can make a small difference in power if you leave it running 24/7 and since it runs with more power it can get hotter which can potentially make it louder. Its not as big of a deal as people make, but its something to be aware of. You still want something that can handle a stream that your video card can't accelerate, so you still want something with power.

And don't count on inverse telecine on the 8300. It's only is really usable on 720p, some 1080i will make it drop frames, and noise reduction and so forth is also unusable on HD content as well. If you were lucky like me and had a 8500gt so you could run in SLI so that its better, but cards like a 9600gt will still smoke the sli solution in 1080i performance, but with any of those solutions you either lose a slot, or gain noise from a additional fan.
 
medstudent23 said:
Yea I realize the noise and heat will be a problem with these CPUs but I'm trying to work with what I already have rather than buying more stuff. I believe the e4300 is 65w and the kuma is 95watts. Is it really that big of a deal? I read that you need an ht3.0 capable and CPU anyways for the best picture quality.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize you already had the Kuma. Go ahead and use it then, it'll be fine for what you need. If you do want to decrease your power you can downclock and undervolt it, there's a guide for doing this somewhere.
 
With a good cooler you wont even need to underclock it to run cool.

I run a AMD 9950 BE (Quad Core 125 watt) cooled by a Scythe Mini Ninja with a 15db fan on it. I have all the power I need for encoding MKV's, runs cool and most importantly its silent.

I wonder how much power these chips draw while running idle.
 
Hmm. Im still not convinced a kuma 7750 w/ 8200 mobo would be better than an e4300 w/ an 8600GT for an HTPC... am I missing something? The kuma 7750 is faster than the e4300 and I could use it more effectively as my main office/gaming system.
 
See, here's where being specific helps. Your original post says OFFICE PC. I looked, no mention of gaming anywhere, so the assumption is that video playback and possible encoding or commercial skipping would happen on the htpc and thus benefit from the cpu.

Since you're going to be buying a motherboard at least, and probably a video card for gaming, it's basically up to you which one you want where.
 
medstudent23 said:
Hmm. Im still not convinced a kuma 7750 w/ 8200 mobo would be better than an e4300 w/ an 8600GT for an HTPC... am I missing something? The kuma 7750 is faster than the e4300 and I could use it more effectively as my main office/gaming system.
Click to expand...

If sound over hdmi was your biggest issue, and you don't mind not being able to do inverse telecine on 1080i content without stuttering, then the 7750 w/8200 would be your better choice. Otherwise, if you can do 8 channel sound via other ways like optical or coax, then the solution with the 8600GT would be better because the 8600 has better post processing performance than the 8200/8300, or a 8300/8500 sli setup.

What I'm talking about, is specifically decicated HTPC performance, if you are talking gaming then you'll probably want to be using ATI cards in that price range BTW, but you'll be better off asking about that in the Video Card forums.
 
Why not 780g and kuma? If you don't care about 7 channel LPCM over HDMI it is the best solution. I just built one to play with Windows 7 Media Center. 1080p MKV, Blueray, 1080p MP4, and 4x HDHR all work flawlessly 1080i included. I'm using an ASUS M3A78-EM.
 
dobieg2002 said:
Why not 780g and kuma? If you don't care about 7 channel LPCM over HDMI it is the best solution.
Click to expand...
Why bother with the 780G when a Nvidia 8200 mobo can be had for the same price and offers the same offloading of HD decoding as a 780G mobo while offering 7.1 LPCM audio?
 
Danny Bui said:
Why bother with the 780G when a Nvidia 8200 mobo can be had for the same price and offers the same offloading of HD decoding as a 780G mobo while offering 7.1 LPCM audio?
Click to expand...

No, its not the same. the 780G is better at SD post processing, and handling 1080i. The 8200 is better at handling 24hz Blu-Ray content, which ATI tend to stutter if you need to worry about that (not a big deal unless you have a 120hz TV) Read AVS forum, Yes they do a lot of overkill, but they will confirm the 1080i telecine issues. Most people who have it have it for the 7.1 audio over HDMI, but they are using a 9500gt, or a 4670 or better for post processing support.
 
Ryokurin said:
No, its not the same. the 780G is better at SD post processing, and handling 1080i. The 8200 is better at handling 24hz Blu-Ray content, which ATI tend to stutter if you need to worry about that (not a big deal unless you have a 120hz TV) Read AVS forum, Yes they do a lot of overkill, but they will confirm the 1080i telecine issues. Most people who have it have it for the 7.1 audio over HDMI, but they are using a 9500gt, or a 4670 or better for post processing support.
Click to expand...

The 8200 is better when paired with a Phenom which is required for advanced deinterlacing.
 
Archer75 said:
The 8200 is better when paired with a Phenom which is required for advanced deinterlacing.
Click to expand...

I talked about that in this thread. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1402825

the only option you gain is inverse telecine, which does not help 1080i at all and in my case made the occasional stuttering worse. If you over clock it it helps but personally I think it gets hot enough as it is. the 8200/8300 just isn't fast enough to do it properly, and the only thing I was able to do to help it was to pair it with a 8500 I had laying around from my old HTPC that died. A 780g does get much better deinterlacing support from a phenom (or Kuma as the only thing that's needed is HT 3.0) and is definitely worth it in that case.

To be fair, the 1080i issue may well be drivers, as it has gotten better with every release, but only as long as I run it in SLI. Running it by itself blurs like crazy on scrolls. I stand by what I said. People get the 8200 because of the sound over HDMI, and personally I think the 780G is better as long as you handle sound via optical or coax.
 
The phenom/8200 thing is discussed heavily over at avsforums.com, the 8200 should indeed come out ahead. It depends on the codecs and if you are using HA. No need to overclock the CPU at all. If you are having issues i'd suggest looking at the codecs you are using as well as the source material.

This is really the first time i've ever heard of the issue you describe.
 
i went ahead and bought the m3a78 780g mobo. its on sale right now (free shipping at new egg). I considered the m3n78 but it has a lot of poor user reviews.
 
Archer75 said:
The phenom/8200 thing is discussed heavily over at avsforums.com, the 8200 should indeed come out ahead. It depends on the codecs and if you are using HA. No need to overclock the CPU at all. If you are having issues i'd suggest looking at the codecs you are using as well as the source material.

This is really the first time i've ever heard of the issue you describe.
Click to expand...

Actually its the reason why in their HD HTPC guide they only rate the 8200 as 'supported' and not moderate or excellent. Most people are likely going to use it there for MKV or blu-ray content thats in 1080p, which its just fine with. It's mentioned there in the HD HTPC thread and occasionally in the original 8200 thread, but the general suggestion is just to use another card. Its a telecine issue, but most people refer to it as stuttering. As far as codecs, yes it can be better or worse depending on what codec you use, but it still is persistent in all of them, and again if I put a 8500 in for SLI or use a 9600 in another machine its gone, or greatly reduced. As I mentioned it seems to be driver related as its gotten better with the last couple of drivers. I still have the itch to replace it but its getting smaller with time.
 
Could you recommend a cheap, quiet video card which would substantially outperform the onboard video on the 8200, and not interfere with the ability to output 7.1 audio (I'm not even sure if that's an issue, so I apologize if it's a stupid question).

Also, if cheap is off of the table, where is the "sweet spot" compromise between price and performance? And I realize that it's likely that my 4870 or even a 4670 would be substantial upgrades, but they also sound like vacuum cleaners compared to use of the onboard stuff.
 
Only ATI has discrete graphics cards that can do 7.1 PCM audio via HDMI. So, look for fanless ones of those.
 
Some people are having good results with a 9500 which AVSforum recommends. It shouldn't matter what you use as you are just going to use two ports. one dvi/hdmi for video, and the other for audio. I'm currently using a 8500 for SLI which is good enough for the moment, and because I need something that will fit in a single slot, or I have to toss one of my PCI tuners for a PCI express one which is still kind of overpriced, at least for the one I want.
 
Ryokurin said:
Some people are having good results with a 9500 which AVSforum recommends. It shouldn't matter what you use as you are just going to use two ports. one dvi/hdmi for video, and the other for audio. I'm currently using a 8500 for SLI which is good enough for the moment, and because I need something that will fit in a single slot, or I have to toss one of my PCI tuners for a PCI express one which is still kind of overpriced, at least for the one I want.
Click to expand...

You dont happen to have a picture of the connections you need for that do you?
 
I'm so confused. So if I have a 4670 and want to run 7.1 to my receiver, I have to run one hdmi for video from the 4670, and one for sound from the onboard video card? That seems odd. Am I understanding you correctly?
 
dommer said:
I'm so confused. So if I have a 4670 and want to run 7.1 to my receiver, I have to run one hdmi for video from the 4670, and one for sound from the onboard video card? That seems odd. Am I understanding you correctly?
Click to expand...

No, if you have a ATI 4670 you just run the HDMI cable. You get Video and 7.1 over HDMI.
 
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