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So I just bought myself a new TV and am thinking about building a HTPC to watch all my videos on but I'm having a hard time deciding on the route to go with it. I have an entry level Dell PowerEdge server that I got last year when they were on sale for $200 or something like that and have been using it as a headless file server. I keep it hidden away right behind my TV stand so it stays out of view.
I was wondering if I could get away with using that and dropping a PCI-based video card and my spare sound card in there for HD and sound processing, or would it just be a better idea to build one from scratch being that all i would need is a new AMD cpu and 780G mobo since I have the rest of the parts for it lying around (case, PSU, 2 GB RAM, HDD's). The server itself has a pentium E2160 @1.8 GHz and 1 GB ECC RAM, the video is integrated as of now. I've been going over w1retap's guide thinking I could offload the HD processing to the video card .
I currently use TVersity to stream stuff to my Xbox 360, but since it severely lags on the HD stuff I can't use it for anything HD on the file server. So if I go the video card drop-in route what card should I get? Since it has to be PCI since there's no PCI-e or AGP, I've been looking at an 8400GS and the 9400GT. If I go with a new CPU/mobo I would like the chipset to support all the HD stuff which is why I was looking at the 780G chipset. I'll also be dropping a BD drive into either setup as well for disc playback. So any information and insight would be greatly appreciated. If I missed anything, please let me know.
*EDIT*PCI and PCI-e 1x, there is one PCI-e x16 but it needs a mod to actually use it, they have plastic molded pieces that prevent a full PCI-e x16 from going in there without cutting them out.
I was wondering if I could get away with using that and dropping a PCI-based video card and my spare sound card in there for HD and sound processing, or would it just be a better idea to build one from scratch being that all i would need is a new AMD cpu and 780G mobo since I have the rest of the parts for it lying around (case, PSU, 2 GB RAM, HDD's). The server itself has a pentium E2160 @1.8 GHz and 1 GB ECC RAM, the video is integrated as of now. I've been going over w1retap's guide thinking I could offload the HD processing to the video card .
I currently use TVersity to stream stuff to my Xbox 360, but since it severely lags on the HD stuff I can't use it for anything HD on the file server. So if I go the video card drop-in route what card should I get? Since it has to be PCI since there's no PCI-e or AGP, I've been looking at an 8400GS and the 9400GT. If I go with a new CPU/mobo I would like the chipset to support all the HD stuff which is why I was looking at the 780G chipset. I'll also be dropping a BD drive into either setup as well for disc playback. So any information and insight would be greatly appreciated. If I missed anything, please let me know.
*EDIT*PCI and PCI-e 1x, there is one PCI-e x16 but it needs a mod to actually use it, they have plastic molded pieces that prevent a full PCI-e x16 from going in there without cutting them out.
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