Athlon XP 2000 + ATI 2600 AGP = smooth HD playback?

Hi all,

I'm building a NAS machine at present, and I'm thinking of also using it as a secondary HTPC. It's an Athlon XP 2000 chip, and will be twinned with 1gb ram. I know the 2600 card will offload most of the hard work into decoding HD formats, but what I'm not sure of is if the XP2000 chip will be up to spec for whatever iot needs to do.

If I'm right, its lacking SSE, but I don't know how much of an impact this will have on the decoding ability of the card. Is anyone running one of these card on a similarly specced processor without issue?

I'm willing to overclock if needs bem provising the board lets me, which I'm sure it will.

Cheers.

Unlikely, I've got an XP2500Barton with 1gb ram and an HD2400 and that doesnt do HD, its all still going via the CPU which just cant cope :(

Even with Hardware acceleration (8500GT) on my AM2 3800+ X2 sits at about 40% CPU using PowerDVD with either Bluray or HD-DVD.

radeon 3450 or 3650 are what you (we) will be after, as soon as they get an AGP one out of the door that is :)

going to be doing pretty much the same. XP 2500+ @2.1ghz, been fine running SD content but just got a HDTV so will be wanting to take advantage of that

I found a Toms Hardware review, whihc basically said you need a minimum of a Sempron 3200, the 3000 wouldn't cut it.

GUess I'll do some experimenting.

Cheers!

Bet my old SN41G2 wont take one of them...