Paging: HTPCisti

What CPU would you recommend these days? I intend to have a dual-tuner
freeview card, plus a normal TV card to control the cable STB. So
potentially I'll be able to record 3 things, and I want to be able to
watch any recording whilst recording.

Obviously I want a low heat creator, or perhaps just better cooling.

I was thinking of the AMD Athlon II 240e (2.8GHz Dual-Core, 2MB L2 cache)
inside a Zalman case.

 

It has to be said, streaming MPEG2 data onto disk and encoding/decoding
at SDTV resolutions is a fairly easy workload for modern CPUs. The
Athlon 240e he mentions would be fine.

 

It's remarkable that what one wrote isn't always what one thought. I
meant to mention that I want to be able to playback HD upto 1080p and the
freeview card will be (or become) a HD version. I'm not sure how much CPU
is required when decoding H.264 although my humble laptop with its 1.8Ghz
proc can certainly cope.

Whilst you're here then, any particular mobo to go for, or stay away from?
Something with HDMI and S/PDIF out will be required. Asus, Gigabyte and
Foxcomm seem to be the brands of choice these days.

 

Ahem, looks like something based on the 785G chipset would be ideal.