Getting the Best out of an Ivy Bridge HTPC: Windows 8, madVR and More..
by Ganesh T S on January 20, 2013 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Intel
- HTPC
- Ivy Bridge
- Windows 8
- Passive Cooling
General Performance Metrics
We are not going to compare our build with full-blown desktop solutions. Instead, we will see how the unit stacks up to some of the low power offerings that have graced our labs. Some of the benchmarks have been run for the first time, and hence, not all benchmarks are available for all units. In addition, we are only presenting benchmark results for our build under Windows 8.
Windows Performance Index
This metric is often considered meaningless, but we feel it serves as an indicator of what could be the bottleneck in a system. On Windows 8, systems can score up to 9.9 on this metric, compared to 7.9 on Windows 7.
Given that we have equipped the system with SSDs and the RAM runs at the prescribed maximum of 1600 MHz, it is no surprise that the HD 4000 GPU is responsible for a score of 4.7 for the system.
Futuremark Benchmarks
Miscellaneous Benchmarks
Starting with this review, we are going to utilize Graysky's x264 Benchmark v5.0 for testing out x264 encoding performance. Instead of just presenting benchmarks for our build alone, we took the opportunity to run the benchmark on two HTPC units we reviewed earlier.
There are no surprises in the benchmarks, with the CPU performance befitting a 55W TDP unit. The absence of four physical cores does hurt it against the i7-based units in the above graphs (and would have showed in the x264 benchmark too, if we had run it on a i7-based system). However, this is not a concern for most HTPC workloads.
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philipma1957 - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
WELL I don't think that I am obsessed.I record Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon , Craig Ferguson and I record Saturday Night Live. That is about 21.5 hours of tv a week. Now Sometimes they are repeats and sometimes they are lousy . So I don't watch 21.5 hours each week. They also run at 1130 pm to 130 am and they compete for time.
The bottom line is I need 2 tuners and 2 dvrs to do this. Why is that> I use 100 percent free tv with an antenna. So my cost is that of a pair of mac minis and a pair of eyetv tuners.
Watching these via the net results in poor quality video due to my net connection . No matter what I would pay for a net connection the best is that of optimum online 15 down 2 up speed . Now if I buy the cheapest cablevision for tv my 50 dollar net fee bundles with cable tv basic . I go to 64 plus 6 for each box is 76 plus 6 for each dvd is 88. So to be able to time manage my tv via cable it is 38 a month. vs 0 I have had some type of dvd/vcr for 20 years do the math. more then 9000 saved.
NeBlackCat - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
You're describing a media server there mate, not an HTPC. We're about at the point now where an HTPC needs to be nothing but a cheap networked ARM box.truprecht - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
Raspberry Pi? Not quite there yet... maybe next gen.The12pAc - Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - link
Was SOOO close to getting on last weekend, just to mess around with..... Cool idea.Golgatha - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
Not to mention Cinavia will eventually make your ripped media streaming life a living hell Fx1. Enjoy not being able to tinker with the hardware and software. Also, good luck getting updates for all those apps once Panasonic exits the market. Microsoft and open source programs; not going out of the market anytime soon.Fx1 - Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - link
No Cinavia on Panasonic. I am literally playing Blu rays off a HDD.dcaxax - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
A) The scaling capabilities of your TV are what they are. I'm sure they're quite OK and I'm sure they don't come close to MadVR, but of course if youre happy that's all that counts.\B) Your TV doesn't manage and play all your media including your m4a's, Flac CD Rips etc, and if it does I'm sure the quality is awful unless iof it bitstreams which is unlikely.
C) It also doesn't play any non-typical audio/video formats. Maybe you don't care about that but others do.
D) Your TV may or may not show you your photos or give you skype or any bunch of other things that an HTPC does.
E) Others have made the point about DVR capabilities better.
F) Regardless of any of the above the UI on your TV doesn't come close to XBMC which itself doesn't come close to MediaBrowser (WMC plug-in)
HTPC's were never about playing pirated content. They are intended to provide a single hub for all digital content.
The fact that you are happy with your TV doing that for you, means that you have no need not bother with articles like this. Or indeed post on them.
Fx1 - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
The TV has a dual core ARM CPU which seems to get the job done and the best 2D image money can buy. I really only try and use HD content.When i download my content i have enough choice between x264 Divx and other popular formats. If i really need to use an odd format any Phone or laptop or PC can stream directly to the TV via DNLA and realtime encode.
Skype, Youtube Netflix and other stuff is baked right into the TV with even a store to buy games.
My Galaxy S3 can use an app to share video pictures and Web pages direct to the TV and the TV can use these features without the phone too. I can play a HD movie directly off my phone in 2 clicks with the picture being perfectly good as i had used the HDD.
Im sure you can find stuff that i cant do that you can do on a HTPC but lets face it the costs are adding up and for what?
jabber - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
Kind of agree with you there. I used to know quite a few folks that ran HTPC boxes but over the past few years they have all got rid of them and just switched to off the shelf options instead.I even had a go back in the day but more trouble than it was worth.
This is UK based too.
WeaselITB - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
How do you watch independent or third-party shows on websites NOT on YouTube or Netflix? PBS documentaries, indy web-original content, etc.You state that you use a phone/laptop/PC to stream via DNLA ... well, then what's the point of your super-TV when you can have a dumb TV and an HTPC and accomplish everything without needing to stream off another box? If a vast majority of the online content you watch is via Netflix/YouTube, then sure, I'll bet that the super-TV works great. If it isn't (as is my case), then a separate HTPC is the better bet.
-Weasel