Would this suffice for cheap HTPC?

adren

adren

adren

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I'm looking to build a cheap HTPC to get me started, I don't want to spend a lot because I'm not certain how much use I will get out of it!

I have found a cheapish decent brand slim mATX case with 300w psu.

If I build something like this:

Random am2 mATX mobo (£30)
Athlon x2 4400+ or Athlon II x2 240 if I can find one (£40)
ati 4350 (£30)
DVDRW (£15)
2gb DDR2 ram & storage I have laying around somewhere already..

Will it play 1080p fine and run XBMC or similar without issue?
 
adren said:
Great, I see people building fantastic rigs for HTPC but I assume they are built for encoding performance too?
Click to expand...

they sometimes use them as their main rig too, so pack them with some high end gear, and a low height gpu mid range gpu
 
Hmm, I have been running an Athlon 2 64 3800+ for the last three years, not all 1080p stuff would decode without stuttering.

I'm currently waiting for my i3 build to arrive, a quick test with my son's PC showed a 9gb MKV at 1080p maxed out the Athlon when transcoding to my PS3, whilst my son's i3 ate it for breakfast without going over 30% use :-)
 
Khrest said:
Hmm, I have been running an Athlon 2 64 3800+ for the last three years, not all 1080p stuff would decode without stuttering.

I'm currently waiting for my i3 build to arrive, a quick test with my son's PC showed a 9gb MKV at 1080p maxed out the Athlon when transcoding to my PS3, whilst my son's i3 ate it for breakfast without going over 30% use :-)
Click to expand...

you want to of load the decoding to a suitable gpu, take the strain of the cpu.

little article - http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/htpc-graphics-cards.html
 
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