Re: Review: Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad CableCARD Tuner – Part I
@jdoe247 Point taken. For the next week I’m 100% dedicated to working on something new (and exciting) so I won’t be able to get anything published in that time frame. But I’ll look to remove what I can’t discuss and start November fresh.
If you do have any questions I’ll be happy to answer them though. I’ve tested the InfiniTV4 in a very wide range of systems.
In terms of CPUs I’ve had it in an Atom D510, C2D, C2Q, i3-530, i3-540. i5-660, i5-670, i7-860 and a dual Xeon. I can tell you that CPU makes no difference with the InfiniTV4 and Live TVRecorded TV. The CPU % even on the Atom was below 10% while utilizing all four tuners.
Where the CPU really comes into play is if you are using Show Analyzer, which is very CPU bound (some IO as well). Transcoding tasks will also benefit from a faster CPU.
Personally, my preferred CPU for a [b][i]primary[/i][/b] HTPC is the i5. It offers my ideal mix of performance, low power consumption and integrated HD Graphics. I would prefer a quad-core but if I ever feel the system needs a boost I’ll upgrade to a discrete NVIDIA (for CUDA) video card.
I currently do not have an any AMD CPUs to test against, trying to rectify that but it will have to wait until tax refund time 🙁
Honestly, one of the most important features I look for when building a system is the onboard network card. You can’t go wrong with Intel network cards, even their low-end. It is a shame that Intel uses Realtek network cards on some of their lower end motherboards. >:(