HTPC Upgrade

paradisiac

paradisiac

paradisiac

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ok I know I asked not long back but now finally got the money back from my graphics card. so I have got about £150ish to spend, so am looking at upgrading my HTPC insides.

Current Spec :
Pentium G620
H61M-US3
4GB Zepplin RAM

Possible Upgrage :
LLANO A6-3670 BLACK EDITION 2.7GHZ APU or AMD LLANO A6-3870 3.0GHZ QUAD CORE APU
A75 EXTREME6

would there be much to gain? or would I be better adding a graphics card to my current setup (it struggles on some MKV files).
 
ok, that is an option :)

is the amd llano any better than the i3?

would something like a A9 Android 2.3 1.2GHz CPU Smart TV Box do an ok job, or do they not really stream?
 
What case do you have bud? Then we know what GPUs can fit. These are my current thoughts till i hear back......

I would stick with your socket type personally. You have quicksync to help with video encoding. This is useful in a HTPC to rip movies from DVD or bluray straight to the HDD. I don't know your entire spec but i would buy

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus HD 6850 DirectCU V2 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £99.95
1 x Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BluRay ROM / DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (Retail) £60.98
Total : £160.93 (includes shipping : FREE).



Budget gaming card which will then negate llano advantage over the IGP and resolve your playback issues. If you already have a bluray drive then maybe go for the EVGA 460 GPU. I have one in my HTPC clocked @900mhz, you also get cuda support which powerdvd etc use to help with video playback. Quick sync is better at video encoding but cuda is more widely used and a nice edition to have.

YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked *** 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (01G-P3-1363-KR) £119.99
1 x Xebec HTPC/Console Handheld Keyboard £34.99
Total : £154.98 (includes shipping : FREE).



I have an X2 555BE (OC'd) with the 460 in my HTPC and i can happily run BF3 in high settings. If you don't want the gaming capability by all means buy a cheaper GPU and do what you will with the change lol I'll add a final link so you can compare what you have vs my HTPC.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/406?vs=204
 
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paradisiac said:
OcUK Opera Media Case

I have a :
i5 2500k @ 4.6GHz
Z68-EXTREME4
8GB Team Elite RAM
GTX560 2GB

which I use to rip and stuff and its saved on my media server upstairs once ripped. so want my HTPC to be low powered and quiet.
Click to expand...

If you use my last link for benchmarks and change my CPU to the llano you can compare them. You can see from there your current CPUs idle power consumption vs the llano.

I would just get a cheap dedicated GPU and maybe a small SSD to improve boot times from cold boot. I certainly wouldn't change socket type.

EDIT

Out of interest how are you connected via wifi or cable?
 
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honosuseri said:
If you use my last link for benchmarks and change my CPU to the llano you can compare them. You can see from there your current CPUs idle power consumption vs the llano.

I would just get a cheap dedicated GPU and maybe a small SSD to improve boot times from cold boot. I certainly wouldn't change socket type.
Click to expand...

I have a 60GB SSD in there already :) yeh was thinking about just fitting a graphics card, but I find media center can be laggy (I put it down to large libraires and poor cpu).
 
paradisiac said:
I have a 60GB SSD in there already :) yeh was thinking about just fitting a graphics card, but I find media center can be laggy (I put it down to large libraires and poor cpu).
Click to expand...

Well if you don't tell us what you have.... don't be surprised if we suggest something you already have lol

I would do the GPU first and see what that does for performance, you get free delivery so that's even better.
 
honosuseri said:
Well if you don't tell us what you have.... don't be surprised if we suggest something you already have lol

I would do the GPU first and see what that does for performance, you get free delivery so that's even better.
Click to expand...

yeh, sorry, I forget what I have in each machine lol

is it worth dropping an i3 in too (or i5 if I can stretch to it)?
 
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