matx htpc

Soldato
Joined
3 Jan 2003
Posts
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anything wrong with the below spec for a htpc.. already got case/psu and hdd
only picked the gigabyte board as its ddr3, but I have never been a fan of motherboards that take 2 type's of ram..


Gigabyte G41M Combo Intel G41 (Socket 775) DDR2/DDR3 microATX Motherboard £39.98
Intel Celeron Dual Core E3400 "LGA775" 2.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail £36.98
OCZ Intel Extreme XMP 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 10666C7 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit (OCZ3X1333LV4GK) £35.99
MSI ATI Radeon HD 5450 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £31.99
 
case and psu from a competitor so I cannot say, but's a really nice case for £50 and it looks like hifi kit. got a spare dvd writer :-)

pic
 
Ah I know the exact case. I ordered it on Thursday!! lol. What coincidence!!

I'll be removing that front lettering tho for sure!

Very similar to this one. I think they are the OEMs.

Great budget case, the other one I looked at was the Silverstone ML03 and ML04 - impossible to find stock tho.
 
lol

I also looked at the ml03 :-)

just need to purchase the rest of the bits.. still not sure on the motherboard... shame ocuk dont have any other socket 775 matx boards with ddr3.. plenty of other places do though...
 
The board should be OK, what aren't you sure about? Dual core will handle full HD video and the 5450 can output high definition audio via HDMI.

I went for the AMD route, Athlon II X2 and a 785 chipset board.
 
I remember so boards that take 2 types of ram having problems.. but that was on a old asrock board that had ddr1 & ddr2 slots..

I assume the 5450 will handle the video.
 
Yeah the 5450 will be fine. Can pass through high definition audio, True HD and HD-DTS Master Audio, via HDMI. Will be good with video too, as its much better when it comes to full HD video and playback of blu ray at 23.976fps. You shouldn't get any frame skip or sync the video. Are you sure that the MSI version come with a low profile bracket? I'm pretty sure that the HIS one does, however.

Did you think about AMD Zacate, like the ASRock E350 M1 - cpu/mobo/gpu all for £80, will hand bitstreaming of high definition audio and video playback will be fine too.

Thats the route I would have gone for if I didn't already have a few bits and bobs lying around.
 
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yes I thought about amd's Zacate but will it be able to play 1080p whilst using the shaders in mp-hc.. I use 2 shaders in mphc to sharpen and darken the picture (find it gives a better result)
my current atom system jerks all over the place if enable them...
 
Is this the " foxconn nt330i sff atom/ion pc" which I noticed your selling elsewhere? ;)

I'm a little surprised by that, must be the shaders really bottlenecking that Atom.
 
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