yet ANOTHER HTPC thread

B

battletoad

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the other threads seem to be a bit older...

Need some info/experiences.

In the running so far:
INTEL
I3-2100T
Sapphire Pure Platinum H67

Roughly R2500

AMD
Llano A6-3500
[-]Asus F1A75 Deluxe <--only capable board I could find[/-] Can't find an itx board with pci-express. Anyone know of any?

roughly R2550 <--shockingly more than the Intel solution

Will be pairing either with 4GB ram, GT520 (needs to be silent) and a(n awesome) chassis of maximum R1000. Worst case ballpark figure of R5000 minus HDD for all.

Needs to do 1080p, and possibly kinect when it finally arrives for pcs so those all-in-one cpu+gpu boards are out of the question (assuming of course that kinect will decidedly be cpu bound).

Are there any other options that might be better? Anyone have experiences that are counter to my expectations with these hardwares?
 
Dont bother buying Llano if you are going to use a discrete GPU. Use a cheap AMD board, maybe R600 or so, and a cheap AMD CPU, another R600 to R1000 depending on what you want to do with it. If it is just for media playback, then get the cheapest CPU you can.

You could also look at a Bobcat solution - an E350 - but I would prefer the AMD Athlon II actually. Both because you have a discrete GPU already but also because the CPU is just a bit too slow IMHO.

EDIT: That is to say, a cheap AMD AM3 or AM3+ board. Get AM3+ if you can for upgradability.
 
Ancalagon said:
Dont bother buying Llano if you are going to use a discrete GPU...
Click to expand...

All of what you said makes perfect sense. Problem is, the only AMD itx boards I can get thru my supplier are socket FM1 which are used afaik only by Llano. Also, prophecy brings up no AM2/3/3+ itx boards either. Sigh, seems i have to go micro-atx for discrete gpu on AMD...

Budza said:
Just got myself this:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E35M1M_PRO/#specifications

Not itx, but lekker nonetheless. For a bit more, you can get this:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E35M1I_DELUXE/

Paid R1400 for the top one :D Needs Chassis and PSU but can get away with no GPU- got a 30GB avatar rip I'll test this weekend. Plays 1080p ~16GB movies fine out the box (latest drivers installed).
Click to expand...

Well if they can do 16GB 1080p's then I'm interested. Have a sucker punch rip I can test it out on which, coincidentally, is 16GB ;)
I'll try to get a price on the itx one (me and this damn mini-itx obsession!), otherwise there's a sapphire board very similar to it which comes in at about R1600. yours is fanless however, which I quite like.

either way, off to do even more research. thx for the replies guys, much appreciated
 
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