Hey, I'm after a bit of advice/help on putting together a HTPC with a shoe-string budget. Mostly what it will be used for is HD video playback (1080p) and music. I've found this deal on ebuyer but I'm slightly worried about the integrated graphics. Will it hinder the playback quality? Also what are your opinions on the bundled CPU? Can I do better if I but the parts separately? I highly doubt I'll ever use this machine for games, all I mainly care about is smooth video, low noise and cost. Any alternative suggestions welcomed. Thanks!
That's actually a good deal when you consider you're getting a £99 quad core and I reckon it would run 1080p fine as it has no TLB bug (50 in it's name) but if you're worried about image quality just get a cheap ATI card like a 4650 (maybe overkill) and if you use powerDVD then you can make use of hardware decoding taking some of the strain off the quad core. I'm assuming you'll be playing your HD stuff legit though
its not a bad deal, but remember that the quad core processor listed there is the older generation (Phenom X4, Socket AM2+) and not the newer one (Phenom II X4, Socket AM3). I say that it should handle some SD stuff, but I dont think it will handle some HD stuff. say just drop in a low profile ATI 3850(?) and go from there. The system should run fine with whatever you throw on it, as long as your not running games on it. This system you found, versus stuff on say newegg, this linked one is cheaper, but its because its the Phenom X4 and not the Phenom II X4, so keep that in mind. Hope this helps.
Come on! You're well underestimating it! I can play anything SD on my sempron 2400+ that's only 1.67GHz single core, those phenoms have much more cache than me and an extra 3 cores with a higher clock speed, it won't have any huge drop in performance either because of the TLB bug, yeah they weren't good but they weren't that terrible, my friend plays SSB. Brawl on dolphin at 30-40FPS with his 9600 =\
A good dual-core can run HD video just fine, nevermind a quad-core. Looks like a VERY good setup, at a steal of a cost. After a quick google, I found this review on the 8200 integrated chipset... http://www.hardwarezone.com.my/articles/view.php?id=2494&cid=6&pg=8 They had zero issues (after a driver update) running full 1080p video through the 8200 chipset with an Athlon X2 5000+ dual-core processor. I know for a fact you will be able to run 1080p with that quad-core processor, and I have no doubt that you'll be fine running 1080p video with the integrated chipset. The only thing I would recommend, would be to pick up a 4GB kit of DDR2 RAM. 2GB's just aren't enough anymore, especially when running Windows Vista / Windows 7 and trying to play HD video content. Edit: Post #666... *Puts on his devil horns and evil face*
You can buy an Athlon II X2 250, 780G/785G/NF8200 and 4GB of memory for less and it will run far cooler/use less power.
The board is great, the CPU is way overkill. For a HTPC I'd probably (still) pair it with an Athlon X2 4850e/5050e.
4850e can't handle some very high bitrate 1080p stuff, you need more MHz, Cap'tn. (I know, I've tried 3000kbps h.264 with DTS audio on it!)
HD decoding is offloaded to integrated graphics? A friend of mine has a 780G mobo and a 4850e and he has no problems playing HD content, so unless the 780G is vastly superior to the NF8200 I can't see a problem. EDIT: I don't know if he tried something along 3000kbps H.264 with DTS, but usual 1080p content runs just fine.
I'd agree on the 4850e front with integrated graphics - 780G/8200/9200 etc should be fine. My advice is that you should aim to keep your spec to a minimum to help keep the heat and therefore noise down too. My HTPC runs onboard graphics, 4850e and 2.5" hard drive. It idles at 63W and I have minimal fans and near silence. I have to add though that I don't have a HD display so all my stuff is standard def.
It entirely depends on the encoding whether the IGP can handle it, sometimes it doesn't like it. Most 1080ps will be fine with a 4850/5050e, but why risk it when an Athlon II is very little more money?
Tasty! Coupled to the fact you can't buy the 5050e at ebuyer now So http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166519 is not that expensive!
Wow guys, thanks for the awesome replies. Appreciate it. Great find fathazza, now I'm just trying to pair it up with a CPU. I've never bought a AMD CPU, and frankly, processor naming schemes scare me. I gather I need a AM2 socket dual core processor that is either 65w or lower. I've found this, which seems to meet all the requirements. Does it get the bit-tech approval?
If it was me I'd get the PII 545 for £3 more, http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168972 that is if you don't mind 15w extra
I did notice that CPU, however the wattage is 15w higher than the recommended amount. With the combination of a low profile CPU cooler and very low powered PSU, going above the "strong recommendation" might not be a great idea...
As long as it's 400-450w then the power of the PSU won't be an issue for your HTPC, power requirements on most components, GPU's especially are extremely overestimated, this article is proof, an i7 920 with a GTX260 pulled 370w max! http://xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/system-wattage_7.html and the new AMD 45nm chips seem to be quite cool running too, the stock heatsink is also supposed to be leaps and bounds over the intel stock heatisnk (i've heard). EDIT: Sorry I didn't realise it was 150W, damn, you definately wanna make sure it's a decent brand, considering it's a bundle people have a habbit of using generic crap. I would never trust a generic PSU, I got a 400W generic which only supplies 212W's on the 12V rail O_O EDIT AGAIN: Yeah for 65W I'd go with bindi, if the bundle's mobo can support AM3 with a bios upgrade the Athlon II is the way to go, they are a huge improvement over the Athlon I's in everything so they're probably even better in decoding 1080p.
The processor Bindi linked does look very good, however it's a AM3 socket and from what I can tell, the motherboard in question only supports AM2+. Am I missing something there, are there no physical differences that make it backwards compatible?
