So what is the lowest power *working* HTPC solution?

[velis]

Full HD MPEG2, H264 with good deinterlacing (vector adaptive et company) + possibly additional postprocessing + subtitles.
Subtitles = required
Additional post processing = wished for (spline / lanzcos resize and sharpening being the desired filters)

Currently released AMD fusion parts are certainly low power, but can't cut the mustard when deinterlacing is needed.

So what is the x86 solution that will do the job that is available right now or will be available by year end?
Possibly below 50W for the entire setup.

 

[Arkadrel]

Going by Anandtechs articals about HTPC reviewing of cards...
If you want to make sure it has everything, and can do everything, the card your looking for is a 5570 or better.

from the 5450 review, on nvidia HTPC cards:

NVIDIA doesn’t offer as many post-processing controls as AMD does, instead leaving it up to the drivers to decide on most things. NVIDIA’s hardware is capable of similar deinterlacing abilities as AMD’s hardware, it just isn’t user-selectable.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3601/the-final-word-on-the-best-radeon-htpc-card

The 5570 is able to use all post-processing and advanced deinterlacing features with ESVP enabled and disabled. The quality was just as good as the 5670 (we would expect no less) and we found no evidence of the card dropping any frames.

Thus as far as we can tell, the 5570 is in fact the perfect Radeon HTPC card that we have been looking for. It’s the cheapest, smallest, and coolest running 5000-series card that can offer the full suite of post-processing abilities, and of course it has the 5000-series’s audio bitstreaming capabilities. Since the whole point of this exercise was to identify the lowest 5000-series card that was still perfect for HTPC use, we have found it. And the best part is it even fits in a low-profile case

.

So you really have to make up for yourself how much your willing to spend on picture quality...
Look below at how tomshardware scored them after running a benchmark for it.

Basically Id say get a 5570 - 5750, depending on how much your willing to spend.

Tomshardware does a HVQ benchmark and tests cards:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hqv-2-radeon-geforce,2844-10.html

He tests them and scores them:

Nvidia cards (higher score is better):
210= 97
430= 116
240= 157
9800gt= 157
460= 117
470=160

Amd Cards (higher score is better)
6850=201
5750=201
5670=190
5550=170
5450=155

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I'm running most of my stuff via ffdshow, which gives incredible customizability and quality. Unfortunately, it eats CPU resources faster than Jenna Jameson, so a decently clocked quad-core is a must.

 

[velis]

Yes, I know 5570 is a good choice ATM, but I'd only buy it for the interim.

I'm currently running my HTPC on Athlon X2 @3GHz + 790GX (HD 3300 integrated).
This, together with a SSD and 3x1.5TB disks takes just about 100W (disks take ~10W measured at the wall)

The problem is that the Athlon is unable to do the decoding + deinterlacing and the HD 3300 is unable to do deinterlacing only. So ATM I don't have a working solution for my HD TV channels. Pathetic, really.

Plus, the entire setup takes 100W in idle (HTPC is always on)

So what I'm really going for is <50W idle consumption
To put it another way: is there a "Zacate" 25 - 35W version coming out that has a GFX part at least as strong as 5570?

 

[Arkadrel]

@Velis

The 5570 is listed as TPD of 37watts.
its real power use is ~8watts idle, ~30watts avg.

Im sure your HD3300 uses abit of power too, even if its not as much as the 5570, its still abit... and when your not useing this, it ll drop.

So your power use will rise LESS than 8-30watts.
And it ll make all your problems go away. (instead of 100watts idle, you might have ~104watts)

To put it another way: is there a "Zacate" 25 - 35W version coming out that has a GFX part at least as strong as 5570?

The llnao should be able to do that and more... performance wise, if you pair it with fast DDR3. Its not out yet though, but yeah... there will be low power versions of that, which would probably be great for HTPCs. Thought first listings of TPD are around ~65watt for cpu+gpu, I suspect idle will probably be much lower.

 

[infoiltrator]

Check out specifications on SANDY BRIDGE I3 or better.
I believe the H61 boards are intended for HTPC, just a thought.

 

[rockyjohn]

You can find additional information about HTPC video cards, including recommended video cards at different budget levels and links to some HTPC articles, at:


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