Building a HTPC/Encoding box.. think this will cut it?

[magnux]

Basically, I'm looking to build a box that will handle blu-ray/hd-dvd ripping/encoding duties (h.264/mkv) as well as playback (VOB/MKV/AVI) via XBMC.

No games, etc. It's strictly a HTPC/Encoding machine. That being said, I've come up with the following:

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200
- ASUS P5N7A-VM

I'm figuring I'll go Quad in order to help with the encoding. I opted for the 45nm Q8200 over the 65nm Q6600 strictly for the cooling benefits. This unit will run 24/7, so I'd like to keep it happy.

As for the rest of the components, I'll be throwing 4GB of RAM at it and a 550W PSU.

Basically, I'm just curious as to whether or not my CPU/MB selection is adequate for what I'm wanting to do and whether or not I should consider a video card rather than using the onboard setup.

 

[jtvang125]

That should be fine. Many of the new video cards can offload decoding from the cpu but do not at the moment offload any of the encoding. Until that is implemented encoding speeds all come down to how fast your cpu is. Raw speed is probably more of a factor than the number of cores though.

 

[magnux]

I figured the additional cores would allow me to encode while watching videos. I'll be encoding stuff for a good 2-3 months solidly and I'd like to be using my HTPC in the meantime.

I was contemplating using a server board and using 2 CPUs, but I think that may be overkill..

 

[cheesehead]

Eight cores?

Massive overkill!

 

[magnux]

Hah, I should've clarified.. if I was to use a server board, I would be using 2 dual-core CPUs -- not 2 quad-core.

 

[spdfreak]

Originally posted by: jtvang125
That should be fine. Many of the new video cards can offload decoding from the cpu but do not at the moment offload any of the encoding. Until that is implemented encoding speeds all come down to how fast your cpu is. Raw speed is probably more of a factor than the number of cores though.

Depends on the app you are using to encode. When I encode x264 MKV from HDTV files, it uses all 4 cores at 100% (Q6600 @ 2.8) I would definitely go with a quad if you are going to do a lot of encoding.

 

[Greg04]

Originally posted by: magnux
Basically, I'm looking to build a box that will handle blu-ray/hd-dvd ripping/encoding duties (h.264/mkv) as well as playback (VOB/MKV/AVI) via XBMC.

Just dl'ed XBMC for my 52" Samsung/Dell GX280 HTPC, thanks. Looks amazing - the scaling function makes my 640x480 videos from my camera look quite impressive.

The apple trailers feature is pretty cool too.

Thumbs up.