£300 for HTPC, any other suggesitons?

DrMekon

DrMekon

DrMekon

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15 Dec 2005
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597
This is what I have picked out for my media centre pc...

Coolermaster Elite 340 Micro-ATX case - Black/Silver (No PSU) £21.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £66.99
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit
Asus P5K-VM Intel G33 Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Mobo
Pioneer DVR-215DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter
Hiper 425W HPU-4S425 Silent ATX2.01 PSU

£266.60

Ive already got the HDD and GFX (pcie x1950xt), so just need a suitable cooler, which should max out the £300..

Would like opinions on my seleciton, or suggestions for alternatives...

I will be connecting this to a full HD tv, via dvi-hdmi, and playing 1080p material...
 
Am I better with Intel, or should I go for an AMD solution...?? Am I right in assuming Intels generally run cooler?? Ive always had AMD, but am well aware of their recent shortfalls.. but I dont know if this goes as far back as these 2 cpu's....

I could get the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600, for the same price as the Inte...??

So the question is, AMD 5600, or Intel E4500???
 
Sell your 1950XT (if your not going to game), and get this motherboard and buy an AMD X2 4200+ or similar. The on-board graphics on that board has a great decoding chip and runs very cool, will play all HD content now and Blue-Ray films when you add a drive later.
 
Furton said:
Sell your 1950XT (if your not going to game), and get this motherboard and buy an AMD X2 4200+ or similar. The on-board graphics on that board has a great decoding chip and runs very cool, will play all HD content now and Blue-Ray films when you add a drive later.
Click to expand...

Which board please?
 
would the ATI 3200 GPU be better for HTPC work than Nvidia 7100 chipset in the GA-73PVM-S2H?
 
Definitley go with the 780G as will output the 1080P via HDMI to TV. Also the new AMD Athlon™ X2 BE-2350 Brisbane Core is a 2.1Ghz 45W chip.

Note that this is one of the Energy Efficent AM2 chips on the new Brisbane Core.

Personally I prefer the Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI AMD 780G Micro-ATX

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-269-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=807

but that or the Gigabyte should be perfect for a HTPC box.

The 780G is getting good reviews and is king of the IGP market at the moment.
 
any board with the AMD 780G chipset will do, i prefer asus myself as well.

make sure you also select components that keep the noise down

the coolermaster doesnt come with any fans if i remember correctly, so put one in at least a Noctua NF-S12 800 RPM 120mm Quiet Case Fan to keep some air flowing round, its only 8dbA, you wont hear a thing!
 
the 45W chips came out last summer i think. dont know why OC'ers dont have em, other big UK online retailers do for around £50-60
 
Forget 45 W, it's all about the 35 W, baby! With hardware video decoding like you'd get on a board like the 780G above the 3800+ is more than enough for 1080p with aggressive codecs like H.264. It's been working great for me with integrated nVidia 6150 graphics.
 
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