Building HTPC. Advice

nightrhyme

nightrhyme

nightrhyme

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Joined
29 Jun 2008
Posts
271
As topic says. Looking to build it as cheap as possible

Be warned I'm a little religious about some brands :p
Building it to handle 1080p mkv files.

Only need: Mobo, ram, cpu and gfx

Mobo: ASUS P5KPL-CM cheapest intel chipset based mobo I could find. It has to be intel chipset ;)
CPU: E7400 cheapest cpu that is fast enough
GFX: ATI HD4350. It has to be ATI passive cooled
Memory: 2 x 1GB Kingston hyperX ddr2, pc800

Any thoughts ?

Thanx in advance

Greetings from NR
 
Asus M3A78-EM AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £70.14

Scythe Zipang CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)
£45.99

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ 2.40GHz (Socket AM2) - OEM
£36.79

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 X 2GB) DDR2 6400C5 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX6400D2K2/4G)
£31.83

Sub Total : £160.65


Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £25.52
Total : £195.67
 
I have an E2200 in mine, plays high bit rate 1080p mkv's fine.
Could you do without the GFX card and put the money towards a better board with built in GFX?
 
Hmm thanx for advice guys..

Will be runing WinXP of course. Does any other OS'es exist ? :p


Not quite sure a 4400+ will do 1080p mkv´s. But then again I don't know much about AMD cpu's anymore. I thought a phenom would at least be required.

I know for sure it takes at least a E4500 to decode smoothly
 
Use Vista's Media centre for mine. TV viewing/recording and the Media Browser plug-in for film backups/TV series.
Have you tried the Win7 beta?
 
I find playing a blu ray in my htpc on a 7750 typically takes no more than 15-20% cpu but i put this down to the fact the decoding is being off loaded to my 9500gt, see no reason why mkv's would be much different, so i would assume a 4400 will cope just fine. Get a mobo with decent onboard gfx or a gfx card that is capable of hd decoding and it should cope fine with the right drivers / codecs.
 
nightrhyme said:
Hmm thanx for advice guys..

Will be runing WinXP of course. Does any other OS'es exist ? :p


Not quite sure a 4400+ will do 1080p mkv´s. But then again I don't know much about AMD cpu's anymore. I thought a phenom would at least be required.

I know for sure it takes at least a E4500 to decode smoothly
Click to expand...

The 4400+ CPU would handle 1080p mkv's nps.
 
I agree, a 4400 will be more than adequate for your needs so long as you have a graphics card capable of doing the work. This CPU combined with 780g mobo will be fine, the on board graphics on the 780g platform is targetted at media centres and will do anything like that no probs.

Hawker
 
I have the next CPU in in mine (2.6Ghz cant remember what model) being dual core really helps with 1080p mkv files. the 780G on-board chip set handles HD Content no problem
 
I have an e6300, Zotac 9300 Mini-ITx Wifi, 2 gb ram runs my most taxing HD-DVD/Blu-ray disk, Transformers perfectly. Peaks at 70% load during the most stressing scene's.

Just proves that selecting the right motherboard makes a world of difference as well as cpu, and g card.
 
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