AMD Black Edition 5000+ $103

[ppl4golf]

I just bought (locally) an AMD Black 5000+x2 to 'upgrade' my kitchen PC...

Directcanada $103

Infonec $107

CC says it's too low to price match...WTF??

[nopn]

just wonder what are you using for your major pc ?

[hopsoid]

A Tigerton Xeon Quad Core for sure!:D
just wonder what are you using for your major pc ?

[ppl4golf]

My PCs are my TV/VCR (moving to HD contents)...the remaining 3200+ single core is just not cutting it.

The Black is not exactly going in the 'kitchen PC' but would be receiving a 3800+x2 I'm going to yank from my major rig.

[cantbprince]

op can you add the link?
http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=10360BD4768&vpn=ADO5000DSWOF&manufacture=AMD

what is special about the black edition?

[Snowy]

My PCs are my TV/VCR (moving to HD contents)...the remaining 3200+ single core is just not cutting it.

The Black is not exactly going in the 'kitchen PC' but would be receiving a 3800+x2 I'm going to yank from my major rig.
Would you have not done better to upgrade to Nvidia 8xxx series? though I guess this is cheaper :lol:

[cantbprince]

Would you have not done better to upgrade to Nvidia 8xxx series? though I guess this is cheaper :lol:

If your doing any video encoding / decoding that's mostly CPU horsepower so upgrading that would be your best bet.

[Snowy]

If your doing any video encoding / decoding that's mostly CPU horsepower so upgrading that would be your best bet.
I read somewhere the 8xxx is set up to reduce your CPU usage (to less than 1% in most cases) when decoding h.264...
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?p=226836&postcount=7
Yes there are new hardware features on the 8xxx cards, I have one.

I have (roughly) 10% CPU usage with h.264 encoded files @ 720p, and thats with a single core AMD 3400+.
Also...
PureVideo HD is is a video engine built into the GPU (this is dedicated core logic) and thus is dedicated GPU-based video processing hardware, software drivers and software-based players that accelerate decoding and enhance image quality of high definition video in the following formats: H.264, VC-1, WMV/WMV-HD, and MPEG-2 HD.

So what are the key advantages of PureVideo? In my opinion two key factors are a big advantage. To offload the CPU by allowing the GPU to take over a huge sum of the workload. HDTV decoding through a TS (Transport Stream) file, for example, can be very demanding for a CPU. These media files can peak to 20 Mbit/sec easily as HDTV streams offer high-resolution playback in 1280x720p or even 1920x1080p without framedrops and image quality loss. (http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/428/5/)
Edit I read a few bits that say encoding is offloaded too but no performance charts for that one... hmmmm

[squall458]

op can you add the link?
http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=10360BD4768&vpn=ADO5000DSWOF&manufacture=AMD

what is special about the black edition?
unlocked multiplier!!!!! only get this if your mobo can oc well

[cantbprince]

Man i wish i had a AM2 board! 939 died a few months after i bought it. :(

[wheeldeals]

I have a Dell E521 with an AMD X2 3800+ (with on-board nVidia 6150 LE video and 2 GB of ram). I can only play blu-ray on a small resolution window. I just got a 24" LCD and would like to play the Blu-ray movies in 1080p. Would this 5000+ be able to play them full screen at 1080p? If I just want to spend less than $150, I can either get this CPU or get ATI HD2600 XT video card. I prefer to get the CPU if it can handle the resolution so I can take advantage the processor when I do some HDV video editing. The video card can play the movies at 1080p but won't do much for my video editing. What do you think?

[bluegreenshxt]

I have a Dell E521 with an AMD X2 3800+ (with on-board nVidia 6150 LE video and 2 GB of ram). I can only play blu-ray on a small resolution window. I just got a 24" LCD and would like to play the Blu-ray movies in 1080p. Would this 5000+ be able to play them full screen at 1080p? If I just want to spend less than $150, I can either get this CPU or get ATI HD2600 XT video card. I prefer to get the CPU if it can handle the resolution so I can take advantage the processor when I do some HDV video editing. The video card can play the movies at 1080p but won't do much for my video editing. What do you think?

I'm not sure what's up, but my 3870 plays Blu-ray just fine with a 3200+. The 2400pro refuses to do the same (might upgrade to the system to this CPU, if I can't find a reasonably priced S939 :(). If I were you, I'd go with the graphics. According to the packaging of my LG dual format drive, a X2 3800+ should be fine.

[ppl4golf]

I'm not sure what's up, but my 3870 plays Blu-ray just fine with a 3200+. The 2400pro refuses to do the same (might upgrade to the system to this CPU, if I can't find a reasonably priced S939 :(). If I were you, I'd go with the graphics. According to the packaging of my LG dual format drive, a X2 3800+ should be fine.

The 3200+ plays recorded OTA HD good with a 8500GT but not a 7300GS...it'll stutter if I do anything else.

With 3800+x2 there is no stutter even playing 2 HD feeds simultaneously.

[ppl4golf]

I have a Dell E521 with an AMD X2 3800+ (with on-board nVidia 6150 LE video and 2 GB of ram). I can only play blu-ray on a small resolution window. I just got a 24" LCD and would like to play the Blu-ray movies in 1080p. Would this 5000+ be able to play them full screen at 1080p? If I just want to spend less than $150, I can either get this CPU or get ATI HD2600 XT video card. I prefer to get the CPU if it can handle the resolution so I can take advantage the processor when I do some HDV video editing. The video card can play the movies at 1080p but won't do much for my video editing. What do you think?

Absolutely NOT worth the CPU upgrade for you...the Dell mobo may not even have anything that can adjust the unlocked feature of the CPU...let alone there would be no big performance benefit from 2GHz to 2.6GHz as far as video playback goes. Go for a video card...24" monitors needs a decent standalone video card...get the 3-series if you can...you need DVI port anyways, right ??

[canadianguy_001]

CC says it's too low to price match...WTF??

lol... thats hilarious... As if price matching this one item is going to put their company in jeopardy or something?

not that surprised tho, it is afterall Canada computers. i actually didnt even know they did price matching?

[kmchow]

lol... thats hilarious... As if price matching this one item is going to put their company in jeopardy or something?

not that surprised tho, it is afterall Canada computers. i actually didnt even know they did price matching?
From a business point of view, I guess CC is thinking it's not worth selling something to make so little money. As well, perhaps their invoice price is higher than infonec's.

It's like someone asking you to jump jobs for 20% less pay.

Of course, as a consumer, you would like to pay the least.

[wheeldeals]

Absolutely NOT worth the CPU upgrade for you...the Dell mobo may not even have anything that can adjust the unlocked feature of the CPU...let alone there would be no big performance benefit from 2GHz to 2.6GHz as far as video playback goes. Go for a video card...24" monitors needs a decent standalone video card...get the 3-series if you can...you need DVI port anyways, right ??

Thanks. I think I will get the video card to play blu-ray with hardware acceleration.

[Tijuana]

What socket does this fit in? AM2?

[supracor51]

What socket does this fit in? AM2?

yes

[gromitlad]

I read somewhere the 8xxx is set up to reduce your CPU usage (to less than 1% in most cases) when decoding h.264...
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?p=226836&postcount=7

Also...

Edit I read a few bits that say encoding is offloaded too but no performance charts for that one... hmmmm

I've got an 8600GT and a 3700+ in my system. It does pretty good with Blu-Rays like Kingdom of Heaven and Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest, but it stutters a fair bit on Harry Potter - OOTP and my Hot Fuzz HD-DVD. I couldn't figure it out until I read online that the 8600GT does not fully offload VC-1 decoding. Sure enough, when I checked the discs I found that Kingdom of Heaven and POC: DMC are AVC-encoded, while HP:OOTP and Hot Fuzz are VC-1 encoded.

Looks like I need to upgrade my CPU to play the VC-1 titles. :(

[brunes]

I read somewhere the 8xxx is set up to reduce your CPU usage (to less than 1% in most cases) when decoding h.264...
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?p=226836&postcount=7

Also...

Edit I read a few bits that say encoding is offloaded too but no performance charts for that one... hmmmm

Who says his media box is running Windows. If he is running MythTV (which by many POV trumps any windows-based HTPC) then NVidia PureVideo is of no use. Better to have a basic video card and spend money on a kick-ass CPU.

[Loomy]

The only time video cards decode HD video for you is when you are playing an hddvd or bluray disk on your PC using a specific player such as powerdvd that supports the specific video card. You can't take a new video card and vlc or mplayer or mplayerc and throw an x264 mkv at it and expect it to decode. This **** isn't automatic like that.

[ppl4golf]

I've tinkered quite a bit...biggest instant improvement is to jump from a single core to a dual core...

Video card helps but they are not automatic like mentioned in the last couple of posts. HTPCs are all about codecs and formats and there are enough out there that CPU upgrade is sometimes inevitable.

This is good value if you need to move to dual core AM2 (becuase you probably have a fan from the existing single core and this black is without fan). Just a word of caution, BIOS upgrade is most likely needed for older mobos.

[Cisco KId]

for those in BC this is 109 at anitec. I am selling my Xeon x3210 quad core which is complete overkill for me to buy a BE 5000 and a Tforce AM2+ 560

I realize that an INtel running at 3.2 against the BE 5000 at 3.2 is still faster and has more cache but I just wanna fool around with the 5000

[earth.razer]

CanadaComputers has price match?! really?

[jamgyu]

FYI

If you shop at Canadacomputers downtown regularly head down the street to Spadina and College and talk to the guys at Filtech Computers... I've price matched Directcanada and Infonec a few times with them... for some of the more expensive stuff they even offered to sell to me at $5 above cost a couple times.