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Thanks Rob. I think I'll save some money then and stick at 2 Gig (I think memory runs better these days when it is matched in size? e.g.. 2 x 1 Gig). Yes I was slightly concerned about the Power Consumption (I do try to be green although slightly ignorant of the consumption of some of these chips) but I am looking to make this a centre piece for watching TV, Playing Music and Recording for all the rooms in the house as well as doing Home Automation etc and figured I would need to use something quite powerful for all those tasks running simultaneously. I will however look into the AMD Chips (I've always liked AMD but felt they had dropped behind recently?). Your tip about low consumption processors will come in useful when I spec the Media Directors so thanks again for that. As regards TV I don't have Satellite so no HD just Standard Freeview and DVD's.but I intended to have around 3 TV Cards for viewing and possibly recording a couple of channels as well (I find the best programmes always run at the same time and you miss one of them) so again figured the extra horsepower would come in useful. Regards, Dave. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rob Beard" <rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 9:43 PM Subject: Re: [LUG] A couple of questions > Dave wrote: >> Hi All, >> >> I am looking to spec a machine for a LINUX MCE Core. Because it is a >> Core I am trying to make it as powerful as I can afford but this had led >> to a couple of questions regarding LINUX which I must profess to be >> ignorant in and was wondering whether anyone could provide the answers >> to. Please bear in mind I will be using Kubuntu 7.10 because that is the >> latest version LINUX MCE will run on. > > Hopefully before April 2009 they'll update it to run on 8.04.1 (April > 2009 is the Kubuntu 7.10 end of life). > >> Firstly I am looking to put in 4 Gig Memory (the max for the MB) but am >> unsure as to whether a 32 Bit LINUX can address such a large amount >> directly and if not what happens to the rest of it; does it sit idle >> (and wasted) or will it become a RAMDisk or similar? > > 32-bit Linux won't use 4GB. It can only address up to about 3.5GB, I > presume the rest isn't accessible. I have 4GB Ram in my PC running > Ubuntu 8.04.1 64-Bit and when I first boot up it uses a couple of > hundred meg, but after a while with lots open it will eventually use > about 3GB memory. > >> Secondly I was going to get a Quad-Core Processor but again I wasn't >> sure whether LINUX would make use of all the Processors (ditto >> Dual-Core) or would be better saving money and using a single-core >> Processor instead? (or at least the cheapest Dual-Core). > > You should bear in mind a quad core CPU uses a lot more power (as in > electricity). You might find a Core 2 Duo around 2.4 or 3Ghz to be a > better option? > > AMD also have a range of low power dual core Athlons. IIRC the Quad > Core Phenoms (I have a Phenom X4 9500 with the TLB bug) use around 120 > Watts of power. > > From experience on my system, it doesn't seem much quicker with a quad > core CPU than it does with a dual core. > > Of course if you're going to be running video transcoding tasks etc then > the extra cores may come in useful although looking at this... > > http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Hardware > > It suggests a P4 2.4GHz can encode 2 streams and serve content to a > remote frontend, so a Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2 will probably be fine. I > presume the content will be standard definition with maybe a bit of > FreeSat HD chucked in for good measure? > > Rob > > > -- > The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG > http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list > FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.0/1770 - Release Date: 11/5/2008 5:36 PM -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html