[keirondrk]

Hi guys, new to the forum...

I've been using XBMC the past month or two getting used to it and love it!
and so does my son with all his wacky races easily playable..

currently I'm using it on my main pc E6600 Intel with a 7600GT.. (happy with general performance via win7)

but I'm planning on moving all of my XBMC onto a dedicated installed machine
I'm thinking a OpenElec install with my stack of USB2 WD external hard drives.

I have a old Dell Dimension C521

which I have replaced the CPU for a AMD X2 5000+ and put a PCI Geforce 210 512MB card to offload the video decoding.. (2.5gb of ddr2 system ram)

Full spec:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/sy.../specs.htm


but I have just acquired a HP slimline S3541.uk

which has a Intel E4700 and 3gb of DDR2 in it.. (looks smarter and smaller)

I planned on popping the PCI Geforce 210 512mb in this (for gpu decoding) if I use it but it currently has a dead motherboard in it.. (I've tested the cpu so thats ok)

I can't decide if it's worth investing in repairing it to use instead of the Dell
as I have sourced replacement boards for it fairly reasonably.. (eak they seem to suffer from the onboard GPU heat issues)

Full HP Spec:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docum...ct=3755534

any advice would be great!!!..

i'm trying to do it as cheap as possible but if the intel E4700 would give me better performance I would rather take that route.. as my library is now pretttttyyyy big :/.... loving how easy XBMC makes navigating and managing all my movies & tv

so I guess the main comparison is AMD X2 5000+ vs Intel E4700 (motherboard takes a future upgrade up to E8xxx series also) on Openelec type install purely for XBMC usage..


Thanks again for any advice you can give me.. unfortunately I can't do a AB test on them with the HP currently dead...

[Orclas]

Assuming that it's mostly a matter of performance comparison, why don't you just boot and run XBMC from the Live CD on the Dell? Navigate around a bit and then play a few pieces of your heaviest content.

If navigation is smooth, the playback is all flawless, fast forward/back and skip to next chapter etc works without hickups and the fan noise level is within reason, then the rig has enough performance and your goal of "as cheap as possible" is achieved at the price of a CDR (or zero if using USB boot).

All else equal, enough performance to do the job is enough to do the job

Beyond that, I'm nowhere near up to date enough about HW to come with any predictions about the outcome.

[keirondrk]

Hi, thanks Orclas, yea I actually have OpenElec installed on that machine, I haven't used it since I purchased the 5000+ and popped the graphics card in .. but I tested it with the previous single core it came with and the onboard and it surprisingly worked pretty well, but I'm not sure how well it will operate with my full 4x 2.5tb library :/ I have a feeling the menu's will get pretty bad... (MQ2 ate the single core cpu even on idle heheh, MQ3 fixed that)

I don't mind spending the bit of cash on the HP if it seems a good investment, I'm in no rush can wait until after xmas... as my son uses it all the time for proggies its hard to get some time to get it migrated onto a standalone machine or the wifes playing around on the main tower..

the Dell is quiet.... the geforce I purchases is fanless.. as part of it was I was sick and tired of my towers noise and wanted to be able to turn it off when watching films it sounds like a wind tunnel!.

I have a feeling the HP will be pretty quiet too if not on-par so they should be similar in that sense..

it's a difficult one I was just hoping on a chance someone had done a similar AMD 5000+ to Intel E4700 switch or so, I've checked out benchmarks and it looks like the intel should outperform it so may help with less laggy menu's but you know what these things are like it's all swings and roundabouts :/...

I like the fact the HP is smaller and doesn't look like a old VCR hehe..

guess I just have to fix it up next year and see what they are both like with a mini library test...