Motherboard for HTPC Server
 

I'm starting to build a Dedicated Audio/Video server.

How powerful a CPU do I need to build a fast Raid 5 Audio/Video server?

Is a Intel Dual Core E8600 (3.33 GHz) fast enough to stream audio/video?

My #1 concern is that the audio & video NOT studder, stop, wait, or otherwise interrupt itself.

Anybody have any experience with Audio/Video Servers?

MLStrand56

Yes it can
 

I assume its not playing locally.

You need IO bandwidth. An Atom single core first generation is enough to stream HD. I use a Linux server with a Duel core Atom CPU. I am just replacing it with a Fusion E-350 as I should like to live without a fan in the server. The Asus E35M1-M Pro is just about the perfect Audio/Video server motherboard but for two things, the very poor network card (so bad I put in a 10 years old PCI network card) and the graphics with the open source driver stutters a little with HD graphics full screen.

To Quote the internet "The E-350 CPU's performance was inconsistent, trailing Intel's CULV dual core Celeron SU2300 by small margins in some tests and larger margins in others." This upgrade maybe completed today and is only to make something faster.

Only Within the ho
 

Only Within My house
 

I only need the A/V server to work within my home.

Atom is one of those micro-computers, right? I don't need HD vid. I only have Composite NTSC DVD's & vids.

I think I should be build an A/V home server, on one of my old computers. So Again, I ask, How Fast a CPU is necessary to serve auio/video within my house?

MLStrand56

SD video was played smoothly by PCs/notebooks ten years ago :)

For SD you do not need any CPU power, just get any graphics card with a bit of hardware acceleration (i.e. basically any card these days).

Most modern mobile phones have enough power to plays SD video.

RAID5 does not take much load from your CPU either, if you want to be safe, get a dual-core CPU. SD bitrate is single megabits per second, absolutely no load for a HDD, let alone a disk array.

Don't worry it should work on any old computer of yours :) I am very keen on lower power computers so that I can operate the computer without a fan and the noise it makes. For SD definition and local playback I could use a first generation atom CPU. Over NFS (A standard way of sharing files between UNIX systems) I could serve and play HD video to a computer with a more powerful graphics card.

For some details on the Atom:

From Wikipedia:

Intel Atom is Intel's line of low-power, low-cost and low-performance x86 and x86-64 microprocessors. Atom, with codenames of Silverthorne and Diamondville, was first announced on March 2, 2008.