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Ideal balance of power/performance/budget for HTPC?

rolfharris

rolfharris

rolfharris

Associate
Joined
22 Jan 2010
Posts
9
I'm looking to build a HTPC, so I need a CPU that strikes a balance between price, power consumption and performance.

Obviously it will need to be good enough to ensure smooth 1080p playback, but it also needs to not be too power hungry, and at the same time be quite cheap.

I've looked around and everyone seems to offer up a different ideal CPU. The new i3's seem to be very power efficient, but I think they're too powerful for my needs.
 
I was gonna suggest an i3, if not i3 then maybe an AMD chip like the athon II x4, its not as efficient as the i3 but it does have 2x more cores and its pretty efficient. Its not like the P4 vs A64 days where one is a power hog, the athlon II would be good in an HTPC.

Theres also the older core2 chips, C2D and C2Q but you would need a S775 board for that, i dont recommend spending a penny on old tech.
 
i think the athlon II 600e is the best htpc chip, as long as youre not looking to play too many crazy new games on it. for a gaming htpc, the i5 quad is king, and if youre like me and just want a lot of speed for little money, the i3 shines if you overclock it.
 
Thanks for your comments - I think I might go for the i3, it's probably too much for what I need, but I guess it gives me that bit of extra performance should I need it.

I guess now the CPU is decided it's on to the mo-fo mobo!
 
Off Topic:

Aleksandrs said:
pretend intel doesn't exist. go amd for sure
Click to expand...

It's funny you say that Aleksandrs, I seen a few random murmurings on the interweb the past few days talking about an Intel Boycott! :D

It's an Ethics thing some people just don't understand, I am getting quite excited actually!

I also find it funny as we may be labelled as AMD Zealots by some pinheads when were actually trying to get a better deal for everyone! ;)
 
for HTPC....how about an ion platform? (atom + nvidia 9400) may lack power overall in the processor but the combo of the two is very efficient and is plenty for 1080p playback
 
Welcome the new guys peeps!

rolfharris said:
I'm looking to build a HTPC, so I need a CPU that strikes a balance between price, power consumption and performance..
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Hello rolfharris

Welcome to OcUK forums! :)

Please read and understand the forum rules and enjoy your stay!


rolfharris said:
I've looked around and everyone seems to offer up a different ideal CPU. The new i3's seem to be very power efficient, but I think they're too powerful for my needs.
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Have you got a budget in mind or any other components to chuck into the project?

High-Def playback doesn't need anything powerful these days as its all taken care of by the graphics card/IGP . .

I could spec you a low power processor & mobo for about £70 quid for the effortless needs you are describing?

If there anything else you would like the machine to do apart from general HTPC duties?
 
Hi - nope it is purely for movies and music, and streaming from iPlayer/similar.

I'll be sticking XBMC on it under either Windows 7 or Ubuntu and that'll be it. No games or anything like that.
 
No, I won't be re-using any parts, my budget isn't too tight, I just wanted to create a complete new build 'on the cheap' as it were.

I've had a look and the Atom seems like it might be the way to go, certainly a lot cheaper than what I was originally going to go with!
 
rolfharris said:
No, I won't be re-using any parts, my budget isn't too tight, I just wanted to create a complete new build 'on the cheap' as it were.
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The problem is most memory from the OcUK store is £80-£100 alone . . .

I was thinking you could nearly get the whole build done for £200 . . .you may have to have a look at auction for either some DDR2-1066 or DDR3-1600

Your not gonna notice the difference between either but within one year the DDR3 will have dropped in value a lot compared to the DDR2! :cool:
 
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Have a look at AMD- buy one of the phenom or athlon x2 chips, I am no expert but if you stand a reasonable chance of utrning one of them into a quad core (check up on the guides, I am not an authority on this.) and even if they wont it is great bang for buck.
 
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