memory for HTPC

[Fender]

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

All DDR2 240 pin 2x2GB

800 @ 5-5-5-18 1.8 V for $55 (after $25 MIR)
800 @ 5-5-5-15 1.8 - 1.9 V for $75 w/ free shipping
800 @ 4-4-4-12 2.0 - 2.1 V for $80 + shipping (after $10 MIR)
800 @ 4-4-4-12 1.8 - 1.9 V for $75 + shipping
800 @ 5-5-5-12 1.8 V for $64 + shipping (after $10 MIR)

1066 @ 5-5-5-15 2.0 - 2.1 V for $80 + shipping
1066 @ 5-5-5-15 2.1 V for $65 (after $20 MIR)

edit... sigh... there's tons of options.

I really doubt I'd see a difference between 4/5 and 12/15/18. 1066 is in theory 33% faster, but I wonder how much practical benefit that would have for use in a HTPC setup? Lower voltage would be nice for limiting heat. MB specifies DDR2667/800, but I wonder if I could get a bit more performance out of 1066?

[^misantropia^]

Memory speed won't be the limiting factor. You are probably better off spending the extra money on a faster hard drive.

[DTS]

Memory speed won't be the limiting factor. You are probably better off spending the extra money on a faster hard drive.

I was going to say he should go for all SSDs, but he already stated in another thread that he was going for SSD for system drive and high capacity HDDs for media storage. If he wanted the amount of storage he was talking about with SSDs, the price would skyrocket.

I don't know how much video he watches, but if he needs that much storage maybe he wants BD rips, which if lossless at up to 50 GB, I wonder how the loading would compare to a BD, which itself has long loading times except on the latest BD players.

Edit: Apart from the speed, an SSD-only PC would be much quieter, especially good for a HTPC.

[Fender]

I plan on ripping my blu-rays and re-encoding to h.264 to conserve space. I think most are mpeg2, which is pretty stupid. I have a buddy that's re-encoded his @ 720p and they are ~3 GB.

Thanks misantropia, you are probably right. This is the classic IT problem. You want 3 things, you can choose 2.

[bitWISE]

What kind of CPU are you going with? I'd go quadcore for sure and make sure to get a tool that can run h.264 across all the cores.

[Fender]

Intel Atom N330 Dual Core 1.6 GHz, w/ hyperthreading

It has a nvidia 9400M w/ CUDA on the MB w/ 16 cores that offload tasks like video encoding and decoding from the CPU(s). It should be able to play full 1080p at about 10% CPU utilization, if the software has the CUDA extensions.

I did consider getting a Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz 3MB L2 Cache Socket P 25W Dual-Core and mobile MB but that would cost at least $200 more in the end.

Small, quiet, low power, low heat is important to me for this project, even if it costs a bit more. I don't want a quad-core-700W-PSU-fans-and-electric-meter-spinning-like-a-Kansas-twister machine. I don't need any more performance than being able to play 1080p h.264 @ full speed w/o stuttering.

[Fender]

ugh... now that I'm on the edge of ordering I'm balking on the dual atoms. dual atoms under win7, I'm sure would perform. Under Linux? I'm not sure if I can find software that has the CUDA extensions enabled. The mobile CPU+MB would definitely be fine either way, but is $250 more. But I can get a win7 license for $100, which cuts the difference down to $150. Dammit...

[DRuM]

I was going to buy DDR2 1066mhz, until someone said unless I'm overclocking that 800mhz would be fine. So you might as well go with 800mhz 4-4-4-12. Mine is set by EPP @ 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1v.
No idea about 1.9v.

[Fender]

everything came today

my old ATX PSU is dead... fuck

I need to borrow one from a buddy to make sure that's the problem.

The case is quite sweet. I can't wait to get this thing fired up.
Going to give this decoder try. It should distribute decoding h.264 over the 2 real cores, the 2 virtual (hyperthreading) cores and the 16 CUDA cores on the GPU.

fucking PSU...