Ugrade AMD E350 ITX motherboard to Intel DG41AN LGA775 Mini-ITX Motherboard +e8400 ?

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rfsapiens

rfsapiens

Member
Mar 6, 2008
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Hello people,

I have a kitchen ITX PC based on integrated AMD E350 APU motherboard but that thing is too slow during youtube video playback due to limited CPU performance.
Meanwhile I have a spare Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 skt 775 CPU not being used right now and on internet there is an Intel DG41AN LGA775 Mini-ITX motherboard which costs around $40. Since both motherboard use the same DDR3 memory type I would only have to get an Intel stock cooler and this motherboard.
The thing I want to know is if it's worth to do this upgrade and how it's gonna be youtube 1080p video playback / H.264 10 bit and so with this new system since I can't do it properly on my current AMD E-350 APU system.
How is Intel GMA X4500 regarding 1080p video playback does it works good with youtube and mkv 1080p videos?
This E8400 spare CPU I had which was on my old Gigabyte P35-DS4 motherboard (which now has an Intel Xeon X5460 CPU) played well youtube 1080p and also 1440p with some struggle.
My current kitchen PC only plays well youtube 480p and mkv 720p smoothly... Will I get any benefit with this upgrade? I mean I ask this because even if Intel Core 2 Duo E8400specifications are far superior than AMD E-350 APU there is some concern about H.264 HW acceleration on Intel GMA which I don't know if it's good for the task and this 775 board comes with Intel GMA.
Taking everything into consideration what do you think? Is it worth or not?

Thank you in advance for your kind help ;)

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.
 
E

escrow4

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2013
3,339
122
106
I'd recommend a G18xx Haswell celeron series ($50 or less depending on where you buy) with an H81 mITX board. It can do 4K, and it can do 10-bit. Have tested on my own G1850. Core 2 can just do 1080p, I wouldn't hold my breath for x264 High Profile @ L4.1 or higher 10-bit or otherwise.

Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116974

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157451

$101 not counting shipping plus an extra $25 for a stick of RAM (plain old Kingston Value RAM DDR3 4GB 1333MHz). It won't fall over with media playback and should have grunt for x265 to boot.

EDIT: Tested x265 sample with DXVA and MPC-HC. No issues.
 
rfsapiens

rfsapiens

Member
Mar 6, 2008
51
0
61
Hello,

Thank you for your kind reply. So I will discard Intel 775 solution. The Haswell is a good solution but also I found this:

MSI H61M-E23 Motherboard + Intel i3-2120 CPU + 2x 2GB Memory for 50 bucks. Will this also do the work I need the same as the Haswell new Celeron CPU's? Or there is any issue with Intel HD 2000 Graphics? Sorry for so much asking but you are more expert in onboard graphics with ITX than me :)

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
10,202
126
The i3-2120 is a Sandy Bridge CPU. Which is fairly powerful, CPU-wise, but the Sandy Bridge IGP is a bit slower than that of the Haswell CPUs. Plus, the SB CPUs have the "29.97Hz bug". They can't play back movie files with perfect timing, like AMD APUs can.
 
F

fuzzymath10

Senior member
Feb 17, 2010
520
2
81
Keep in mind if you already have the 775 cpu that the e8400 should have little or no trouble software decoding almost anything you throw at it up to 1080p including hi10p. I had a Q8200+x4500 for awhile and had no issues other than the fact fancy processing like madvr or shader effects are a no go.

Newer solutions will be more efficient but the 775 solution might be ok. My main issue is that in cases where only the hardware decoder is fast enough, the software must utilize it properly to be effective.
 
rfsapiens

rfsapiens

Member
Mar 6, 2008
51
0
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Thank you for your all kind reply and help all of you are great :D

So taking into consideration what was said above: some of you tell me to buy the best future proof while others say mid term and other says 775 is ok. If you were me what would you really do?

-purchasing the 775 mobo (which someone told me that it has issues and other say it doesn't but it seems I will have slowdowns anyway that's way much better than AMD E350 which I currently have)
-Going with the celeron 1037U (is this good enough? )
- Haswell + H81 ( the best, future proof and more efficient but also expensive solution)

I understand the last one is the best solution but also the expensive one.... Does it really worth going to an G18xx Haswell? How is the Celeron 1037U performance compared with the 775 solution or Haswell G18xx?
What would you do considering this is a kitchen PC with it's only purpose of being responsive and playback 1080p, Hi10p and so?

Sorry for being so annoying but the money is not that much and has to be well spent so that the system lasts and I don't get disappointed with it.

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
10,202
126
Sorry to say, but 775 is old an inefficient. As well, mobos for it aren't really that cheap. And most of them take more-expensive and slower DDR2 memory. So I would strongly recommend crossing 775 off of your list.

1037U is low-power, relatively cheap, and takes DDR3.

Haswell + H81 takes more power (but not a huge amount more), but is faster, has a better IGP, and also takes DDR3. But slightly more expensive that 1037U.

I guess, it comes down to budget, and power requirements. I would advise going Haswell if you can afford it, as the Haswell generation is the one that Intel fixed the "29.97Hz bug" in the IGP. The 1037U is Ivy Bridge, and still has the bug.
 
rfsapiens

rfsapiens

Member
Mar 6, 2008
51
0
61
Thank you all for your kind help. :D
That's all I needed to know :) I'll go to the Haswell since it's the only thing without bugs :)

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.
 
cbn

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
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OP,

What computer case/psu are you using? What Operating system?
 
rfsapiens

rfsapiens

Member
Mar 6, 2008
51
0
61
Hello,

I'm using a NOX Coolbay Slim Case with mATX PSU of 450W and Windows 7 64 on a 64gb SSD. :)

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.
 
nenforcer

nenforcer

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2008
1,767
1
76
Funny you should ask - I just tested on a single core Celeron E450 @ 2.2GHz with a G41 Chipset Intel GMA 4500 and it can barely handle 720P without any dropped frames using Google Chrome on YouTube. A dual core E8400 could probably handle 1080P with a GMA 4500 but this would be bare minimum as a baseline.

I'm coming from an nVidida ION Intel Atom 330 dual core w/ hyperthreading for my HTPC which could barely handle 1080P. I went with an AMD Athlon 5350 quad core w/ Radeon HD 8400 graphics and this 25W machine is capable of handling 4K at an extremely low cost.
 
cbn

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
221
106
nenforcer said:
Funny you should ask - I just tested on a single core Celeron E450 @ 2.2GHz with a G41 Chipset Intel GMA 4500 and it can barely handle 720P without any dropped frames using Google Chrome on YouTube. A dual core E8400 could probably handle 1080P with a GMA 4500 but this would be bare minimum as a baseline.

I'm coming from an nVidida ION Intel Atom 330 dual core w/ hyperthreading for my HTPC which could barely handle 1080P. I went with an AMD Athlon 5350 quad core w/ Radeon HD 8400 graphics and this 25W machine is capable of handling 4K at an extremely low cost.
Click to expand...

On my C2D using GMA 3100 (which doesn't have H.264 decode) E6550 (2.33 Ghz dual core with 4MB cache) plays 1080p You tube fine.

But yeah, if the CPU is not up to the task.....the iGPU needs to be good enough.
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
10,202
126
nenforcer said:
I went with an AMD Athlon 5350 quad core w/ Radeon HD 8400 graphics and this 25W machine is capable of handling 4K at an extremely low cost.
Click to expand...

I tried running a 4K Elysium trailer from 4ktrailers.com, as escrow4 requested, in my thread in GH about my Am1 build. It hit 100% on all four cores, and was skipping frames badly.

That's with a Sempron 3850, overclocked from 1.3 to 1.625Ghz.

Can you test that particular trailer?

I was using Win7 64-bit, and newest 64-bit MPC-HC. Even updated the video drivers to Cat 15.7 WHQL (newest).
 
rfsapiens

rfsapiens

Member
Mar 6, 2008
51
0
61
Hello people,

I bought the Haswell as recommended with an MSI H81I ITX motherboard, the cpu I've chosen the Pentium G3250 Haswell skt 1150 CPU. I'm using Intel HD onboard graphics. It plays smoothly everything except 4K which it has some frame drops. Is there anything I can do to improve it or 4K only works well with Core i3,i5,i7?

Here it is the full specs of the system right now:

Nox Coolbay Slim ITX case with MATX 450W PSU
Intel Pentium G3250 Haswell skt 1150 CPU
MSI H81I ITX Motherboard
3GB DDR3 1066 Dual Channel (2GB + 1GB Module)
Onboard Graphics
Realtek HD Audio
SSD OCZ Vertrex 3 64GB SATA2
HDD WD 200GB 8MB SATA

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.
 
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rfsapiens

rfsapiens

Member
Mar 6, 2008
51
0
61
Anyone? :)
Maybe increase the RAM and change it to 1600 MHz Modules? What do you think? :)

Regards,

Rfsapiens.
 
Last edited:
E

escrow4

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2013
3,339
122
106
rfsapiens said:
Hello people,

I bought the Haswell as recommended with an MSI H81I ITX motherboard, the cpu I've chosen the Pentium G3250 Haswell skt 1150 CPU. I'm using Intel HD onboard graphics. It plays smoothly everything except 4K which it has some frame drops. Is there anything I can do to improve it or 4K only works well with Core i3,i5,i7?

Here it is the full specs of the system right now:

Nox Coolbay Slim ITX case with MATX 450W PSU
Intel Pentium G3250 Haswell skt 1150 CPU
MSI H81I ITX Motherboard
3GB DDR3 1066 Dual Channel (2GB + 1GB Module)
Onboard Graphics
Realtek HD Audio
SSD OCZ Vertrex 3 64GB SATA2
HDD WD 200GB 8MB SATA

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.
Click to expand...

Post a mediainfo dump of the 4K file (or a sample), and I'd use MPC-HC for playback:

https://mpc-hc.org/

Install then View -> Options, Internal Decoder, Video Decoder, set to DXVA 2 and ensure 4K is ticked:



For mediainfo:

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download/Windows

32-bit only without installer (installer has opencandy) and post the text dump.

Matched dual channel probably won't make a difference. I wouldn't use mixed RAM due to possible compatibility issues.

The 4K Elysium trailer is here:

http://www.hd-trailers.net/movie/elysium/

Right click to save for anyone interested.

EDIT: Re-tested the trailer, closer to 10% load. No issues.
 
Last edited:
rfsapiens

rfsapiens

Member
Mar 6, 2008
51
0
61
Hello,

Thank you for your kind reply :)

I've done what you suggested installed MPC-HC ticked what you told me exactly like the picture and nstalled MediaInfo in fact it improved a bit but I still have some frame drops and cpu goes up to 100%. Am I missing somethng?

The MediaInfo for the Trailer I have says:

Duration : 1mn 28s
Bit rate : 60.4 Mbps
Width : 3 996 pixels
Height : 1 730 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 24.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:4:4
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.364
Stream size : 639 MiB (99%)
Writing library : x264 core 142 r2455 021c0dc
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=4 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=18.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : ac-3
Duration : 1mn 28s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 6.77 MiB (1%)
Language : English
Click to expand...

and then I tried the Elysium trailer in 4K and it was almost smoothly but with some lag and cpu going to 100%

General
Complete name : C:\Users\Kitchen\Downloads\Elysium_trailer_1-4K-HDTN.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 420 MiB
Duration : 2mn 12s
Overall bit rate : 26.6 Mbps
Writing application : Lavf54.63.104

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 2mn 12s
Bit rate : 26.3 Mbps
Width : 4 096 pixels
Height : 1 716 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 24.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.156
Stream size : 414 MiB (99%)
Writing library : x264 core 125
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=18.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 2mn 12s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel(s)_Original : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 6.04 MiB (1%)
Language : English
Click to expand...

Am I missing something?

Here it is the screenshot of my MPC-HC settings.

Thank you all in advance for your kind help ;)

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.
 
E

escrow4

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2013
3,339
122
106
Odd. Can you post the a link to the trailer you have that skips? And have you installed the latest iGPU drivers from here:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/search?keyword=G3250+drivers

Make sure you select either 32-bit or 64-bit. Also setting the decoder to QuickSync is there a change?

EDIT: On an i3 4170 now, tested a 4K trailer from Youtube, ~60% CPU usage, some dropped frames due to buffering no issues.
 
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