[stang725]

Looking to build four identical 2U servers that will be used for XBMC playback of 1080p MKVs to remote displays. Most of the videos are bluray quality rips, so 18-28GBs files. I have a concern about using mediocre processors and onboard video, as I have seen multiple computer/laptops stutter on 1080p video w/ either sub 2Ghz processors or onboard video.

I can fill in all of the pieces except the CPU/MB. What is the best combination I can go with that will still give me a m-atx form factor, 16x pci express slot, 3Gbps Sata.... that will not stutter on any mkv. I prefer intel, but price will dictate based on the need to build 4 boxes.

My current choice is:

NORCO RPC-230 2U Rackmount Server Case
SeaSonic SS-300ES Bronze 300W ATX12V V2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

ASRock E350M1 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD A50M Hudson M1 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
An ATI low-profile 4x or 5x series card w/o external power connection to supplement onboard video?
4 GB DDR3

OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) running Win7
~OR~
THUMB DRIVE running XBMC-Live

Any help would be awesome as I want to keep cost down

[charlie0440]

Edit: re read your post. Why not have 1 * 2U server and 4 inexpensive device on each display, maybe a ready built, which can playback HD bluray rips?

[TeKo]

Maybe he doesnt need all 4 servers for 1 place.
If its for 1 house get one File Server and 4 cheap small mediacenters.

Asrock A75M
AMD A6-3500
Any DDR3 4GB 1333+ Ram
SSD that is not OCZ

or

Asrock H67M / H61M-HVS
Intel i3-2100(T)
AMD or Nvidia low profile gfx card (AMD 6450/NV 210)
Any DDR3 4GB 1333+ Ram
SSD that is not OCZ

[stang725]

I have a 6tb nas box for storage running Freenas, so I have the storage side covered. I was initially thinking about a quad/hex core with 3 discrete gpu's +onboard video for 4 outputs.... but I am a windows admin and know very little outside of GUI for linux.... was concerned about getting it set up to run 4 instances of xbmc to 4 separate GPUs on windows based on the 1 instance limit for windows and and the ability of the machine to be able to be able to decode that much stuff at the same time. I couldn't find any instances of people getting 4 outputs from one box... a lot of people talking about it, but not a lot of proof of concept with instructions + hardware specs. I wouldn't mind linux clients, but to invest that much in a server... I would like it to be running windows home server.


Note:
I really like Linux for its reliability and efficient use of hardware resources, as I spent 10 years in the Submarine force and we don't trust launching weapons and missiles to Bill Gates, we use enterprise edition of Red Hat. Only problem is we only used images and very rarely left the GUI so I didn't really learn much besides how to navigate directories from the CLI or ping remote hosts for connectivity T/S.

I also looked into visualization, but VMWARE doesn't allow clients to talk directly to the GPUs. Another drawback is I'm not sure how the displays will negotiate with the 4x4 HMDI matrix if I go with a always-on 4-output server for all displays, where you constantly have displays being turned on/off and. I have seen XBMC behave strange when left on and the display being turned off then on, with the mouse only being able to be moved over a portion of the full screen XBMC screen. Exiting and restarting XBMC corrects it.

I figured with a SSD, I will be into XBMC in ~10-15sec from boot ->win7 on a scaled down install so there will be fresh handshake from hdmi output at the client->matrix->display and I won't be using gobs of power when the server wakes up to stream to just one display

[BLKMGK]

There are some bad presumptions made here about CPU power needed to run XBMC. My front-ends are all ATOM powered ION devices running Linux with power enough to playback BluRay quality video at less than 25% CPU usage. All of the heavy lifting is done by the GPU and I get audio over the HDMI cable too. VDPAU acceleration under Linux is what makes it all happen and it's cheap to boot. I also use less than 20watts of power while watching these videos and that should be another consideration in whatever gets built IMO.

Before making this purchase I would strongly recommend better understanding what you need if indeed it's money you wish to save! What's been proposed is overkill in the extreme so far as CPU and power usage. Using an SSD though is a very good idea or you could even netboot but that would take a bit more setup and isn't something I've delved into myself.

[stang725]

ok, so I figured out why I was thinking I needed that much processing power, didn't realize hardware acceleration was off by default... kind of a major duh on my part, anyhow thanks for the reality check...

@ BLKMGK what GPU are you using, I was thinking about a ATI 5570, as they are pretty cheap and I have now tested a E6300 1.86Ghz w/ a ATI 5570 with stutter free playback of a 34GB mkv.

While it might have a little more power than a ATOM, I would think the difference would be negligible for video playback.

How about one of these options:

ASRock E350M1 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD A50M Hudson M1 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo +(a 4x/5x low-power ATI GPU card?)

OR

A 1.8ghz atom with a discrete low-power ATI card

[burritoboy9984]

There are some bad presumptions made here about CPU power needed to run XBMC. My front-ends are all ATOM powered ION devices running Linux with power enough to playback BluRay quality video at less than 25% CPU usage. All of the heavy lifting is done by the GPU and I get audio over the HDMI cable too. VDPAU acceleration under Linux is what makes it all happen and it's cheap to boot. I also use less than 20watts of power while watching these videos and that should be another consideration in whatever gets built IMO.

Before making this purchase I would strongly recommend better understanding what you need if indeed it's money you wish to save! What's been proposed is overkill in the extreme so far as CPU and power usage. Using an SSD though is a very good idea or you could even netboot but that would take a bit more setup and isn't something I've delved into myself.

ok, so I figured out why I was thinking I needed that much processing power, didn't realize hardware acceleration was off by default... kind of a major duh on my part, anyhow thanks for the reality check...

@ BLKMGK what GPU are you using, I was thinking about a ATI 5570, as they are pretty cheap and I have now tested a E6300 1.86Ghz w/ a ATI 5570 with stutter free playback of a 34GB mkv.

While it might have a little more power than a ATOM, I would think the difference would be negligible for video playback.

How about one of these options:

ASRock E350M1 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD A50M Hudson M1 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo +(a 4x/5x low-power ATI GPU card?)

OR

A 1.8ghz atom with a discrete low-power ATI card

+1 for what BLKMGK said. The ION based htpc in my sig plays just about anything I throw at it, and it is single core to boot.

-Erik

[wilson.joe]

don't let the size of the ion fool ya.

[spencers]

don't let the size of the ion fool ya.

Quoted for truth. My little acer revo 1600 is still amazing. Only reason I'd swap is to move to something smaller/lower power use!

[stang725]

Yeah, based on reading the Eden release notes for the Live-Version running on top of ubuntu...

Going to either go with this:
ASRock E350M1 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD A50M Hudson M1 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo

Or

ATOM-based ION solution


I seem to see a favoritism for the atom thus far... though reviews put the AMD solution above most atom boards in terms of performance. Is that simply because pre-eden, you were getting better driver support that was yielding better performance with the atom boards vice amd solutions?

[bluray]

You might want to check out this fully equip little guy "Xtreamer Ultra 2"......

[BLKMGK]

Yeah, based on reading the Eden release notes for the Live-Version running on top of ubuntu...

Going to either go with this:
ASRock E350M1 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD A50M Hudson M1 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo

Or

ATOM-based ION solution


I seem to see a favoritism for the atom thus far... though reviews put the AMD solution above most atom boards in terms of performance. Is that simply because pre-eden, you were getting better driver support that was yielding better performance with the atom boards vice amd solutions?

Performance? How exactly are you measuring that? I can playback 1080P video with no issue and skins don't slow me down. What more performance is needed exactly? I do have one of my systems overclocked slightly and it makes compiling XBMC go noticeably faster but that's the only thing a faster CPU would be good for - CPU intensive tasks like compiling... Make sense?