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Another plex/xbmc dual core thread!

famous600

famous600

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 8, 2010
705
1
So the 2.3 quad I had ran excellent. However I really started to consider the fact that since I am buying a maxed out iMac I need a mini as JUST a media server and HTPC. This leads me to believe the dual core will work just fine for my needs. However, can anyone attest to real world experience? Anyone play a 1080p rip in XBMC while the Plex transcoder may be transcoding to multiple devices at the same time without the fan screaming? The quad never went over 1800rpm. Any thoughts?
 
I don't know what my CPU/fan was running at but I regularly stream plex to multiple devices, mine is a 2011 dual core. Never had any playback issues and all 1080p movies
 
tmanto02 said:
I don't know what my CPU/fan was running at but I regularly stream plex to multiple devices, mine is a 2011 dual core. Never had any playback issues and all 1080p movies
Click to expand...

That's good. For the other poster, I don't know how much future proofing really needs to be done in a HTPC that once the iMac arrives its only job would be to stream Plex and play 1080p rips from an external at the same time. I understand what you are saying 100% though and that was my original idea when I purchased the quad originally.
 
A 2009 2.26 Core2Duo runs everything flawless: high-bit MKV's, blu-rays, BR lossless rips. As long as you don't try it using VLC, but with XBMC it will play awesome. You can also insert a BR drive into a 2009/2010 one. Kind of neat. BR still beats downloads for quality.
Another positive of the old ones, the Nvidia chip supports better custom framerates than the Intel HD ones. So 24p support is better.
 
blanka said:
A 2009 2.26 Core2Duo runs everything flawless: high-bit MKV's, blu-rays, BR lossless rips. As long as you don't try it using VLC, but with XBMC it will play awesome. You can also insert a BR drive into a 2009/2010 one. Kind of neat. BR still beats downloads for quality.
Another positive of the old ones, the Nvidia chip supports better custom framerates than the Intel HD ones. So 24p support is better.
Click to expand...

Nice! Appreciate the post!
 
Sounds more and more like the i5 will suffice as just a media server/streamer.
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
BR is lossless? I thought they use H.264, MPEG-2 or VC-1. Silly me! :p
Click to expand...
Lossless rips: so without recompressing to a lower bitrate like most MKV's on the web.
The Nvidia 9400M and 320M also do hardware decoding of MP4/H264. Guess it is the reason why the fans don't kick in when playing 1080p content in XBMC.
 
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