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Minimum CPU/RAM for HTPC?

post #1 of 2
2/12/07 at 7:28am
Thread Starter 
I have an older system that I am thinking of turning into a HTPC but I believe the CPU is too slow. It is a 1.2 GHz AMD Athlon processor. I believe they can be overclocked but by how much I donlt know. I would need a video card for DVR and also have the ability to record HD OTA signals as well as display them.

I guess the first ? is....should I even bother with such a slow system? What's the lowest CPU/RAM combo to look at for basic functioning. I don't really need the bells and whistles. Just basic DVR, HDTV for the future, and watching normal TV at the same time as recording.

Well. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
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post #2 of 2
2/12/07 at 2:19pm

Re: Minimum CPU/RAM for HTPC?

Recording OTA HD requires virtually no CPU; it's already encoded. If you want to record SD, you'll want a card with built-in MPEG-2 encoding, so that's low CPU too. Then you also need a video card with hardware MPEG-2 decoding, for both SD and HD.

So your Athlon might be doable. (I ran an HD-only setup on a 1GHz P3.) 512MB of RAM should be enough. Where you might feel the lack of speed is in the UI for the DVR software, or if it does any processing, like scanning for commercials, or conversion to another format.
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