I need to upgrade my media server at home and I want to do it pretty cheap.
The main purpose of this computer is downloading HD movies from newgroups and streaming them to the media player I have in my entertainment center. The most processor intensive part of this is repairing and extracting 90+ part 8+ gig winrar files.
I will NEVER be playing games on it.
I would like to do some very minimal video editing from my firewire DV cam. Nothing fancy, just get the video off the camera, chop it up, and toss it on youtube for the family.
Right now I’m leaning toward an Asus board and an AMD dual or quad core processor. Yes, I know Intel is probably a little faster but for a PC I’m never going to game on the price increase over AMD doesn’t seem worth it.
Anyone seen any screaming deals on MB/processor combos? What about ram?
Are you going to be streaming from the PC with HDMI, or will it simply be storing the files and the entertainment center has the capability to play videos from your hard drive?
Just storing the files and playing from the hard drive over the network (I have my Popcorn Hour for actually playing the videos on the TV). It will never need to play 1080p video from the computer itself.
Right now I have a 2ghz single core AMD with a gig of ram and it will stream a 1080p mkv with DTS sound perfectly. It takes almost as long to repair and extract a 10GB 90 part rar file as it does to download it though. And finalizing even a simple video project is a “start it and go to bed” exercise.
That sounds pretty good, wish it had one more sata port though.
EDIT: You know what, screw it. If I get to the point that I have 5 sata drives in the damn thing and I’m still out of storage space I’ll just pick up a $20 4 port sata card.
Are you going to be using a 64-bit OS install? Remember, if it’s 32-bit it cannot see all of the 4GB. You can still put 2X2 in there, but don’t be alarmed when it shows you only 3. You probably already know this, but I try to over-educate just in case
I think with what you’re doing, either will work. You can probably go with the cheapest RAM and be OK, too.
As for additional SATA-II slots, the motherboard prices seem to jump a bit for 6+ with onboard video. I only did a quick look, so it may exist. I just didn’t see it…
If you find that 5 isn’t enough, an add-in PCI-E SATAII controller card can be had for around $30.
If you didn’t already purchase, make sure to go through Bing.com/cashback -> Newegg.com Link -> Purchase goodies manually on that page to get 2% cashback in 3 months…
I’m a bit of a bing cashback noob. How do I find the newegg combo deal on bing? I tried searching for the MB model number and got nothing from newegg, same when I search for the link to the combo.
Instead of searching through it for the stuff you want, click on Stores on the left and go directly to Newegg.com through that link. Then, when you’re on newegg, find the stuff you want. I found the combo deal on one of the main combo deal pages so that should be easy to find.
Just don’t close that window or open a new one, as the bing cashback only knows what you do in that one window. I got burned $20 once because I accidentally did that once by opening a new tab and checking out from there…
I put my combo together some time ago with an Intel Quad Core Processor and an ASUS HDMI equipped MOBO. Works quite well even with the BR player on 1080i or p
