I need to build a HT-PC - need a p4 cpu

lez · 09-21-2007, 04:35 AM

Ok my desktop machine is getting old, and needs a revamp, I have also decided that I heed a Home Theater PC, as my dvd player is old, my TV system is analog and they are going to kill the local transmitter soon as an upgrade to digital, all this, I have to move on...

I'll mis analog tv like I did vinyl, I'm lucky in having a damn good signal, and back in the day when things were transmitted around as analog, it beat the quality of the digital system habds down, now thats hard to prove, as even on analog, I'm watching a picture thats sent across the network as digital!

Back on (off) topic.....

I have a socket 478 MB(Ai7) and 1gb of ram, 8 hard drives, 2.4ghz cpu.

I dont want to spend a great deal of cash, but I know I will need to upgrade the cpu at least to 3.2 or above, thats cheap enough you can still get them in 478 and will mean not having to change the ram.

MB will do a 200(800) FSB, its currently at 220(880) and pci/agp up 10% as well.

As the system stands I can download and play HD trailers with no stuttering so I think the BM/gfx combo is fine, just a little more cpu needed to be sure etc.

So, I have looked for a new CPU of at least 3.2, and I find they are so many with such different specs and core designs its given me a headache.

Wiki made it worse, pages of history and bad stories about how bad the p4 is for being hot / wasting power

I want build a system thats got the speed to play things at a good frame rate, so I have a fast 2d card, and it can do 1280*1024, just need to find a display to match that (plasma or projection)

But the CPU, anyone know which P4 can do a good 3.2+ and not need a power station to run?

I got even more confused when I read the ones with 2mb of cash were sometimes slower ?

I thought Prescott was a politician, and Northwood was were he went on a friday night, possibly to meet Willamette......

My main concern is reducing power consumption, while at the same time hopefully going up a notch in speed.

If I have to change the MB then I dont know which way to go on that, I hope to avoid it, but if I cant get this sytem down to a low standby consumption/moderate in use figure, then maybe a new mb/cpu will have to be the way.

floors open, have your $0.02 .........

judoGTI · 09-21-2007, 03:56 PM

YOu should be able to use the 2.4. I think mine is a 2.4 Ghz (its been so long since Ive had to tinker with it I dont remember) but I use the nVidia/Pure decoder and works as happy as can be. If you want to use some of the more complex ffdshow decoder you will need more power but thats it. Overclock it if you can, and try to make it as silent as possible (big heatsink, quiet fans, etc...) and youll be happy.

lez · 09-21-2007, 05:46 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by judoGTI

YOu should be able to use the 2.4. I think mine is a 2.4 Ghz (its been so long since Ive had to tinker with it I dont remember) but I use the nVidia/Pure decoder and works as happy as can be. If you want to use some of the more complex ffdshow decoder you will need more power but thats it. Overclock it if you can, and try to make it as silent as possible (big heatsink, quiet fans, etc...) and youll be happy.

Yeah after some hunting today seems I can just buy a cheap p4 3ghz chip for it, and a very large heatsink with silent fan, and its away.

Now I ned to find a good PSU, as thats were about 20-30w of power can be wasted, seems tis better to use a smaller PSU pushed to its limits thana large PSU under used, which is the opposite of what I thought it would be, but all the sites seem to say that PSU's are least efficient at low loading.