New htpc build haswell or ivy bridge with gfx help

Meridiusuk

Meridiusuk

Meridiusuk

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Joined
9 May 2009
Posts
1,072
Hi all

Wanting to build a new htpc and I have two options

Option 1
Haswell i5 4430 using its own gfx
Asus H87I-Plus
Stock CPU cooler

Option 2
Ivy bridge i3 3220
Asus P8Z77-M
Stock CPU cooler
Sapphire HD 6570 Ultimate Edition 1024MB GDDR3

Now both systems work out at the same price but I don't know which to go for as I want a quiet build.

Would the i5 be just as quiet as the i3 just playing full 1080p blurays.

Thanks for any help
 
Amd have better onboard Gpu and You dont need a powerful cpu just to watch films. You could buy an aftermarket cooler to keep the noise down.
 
Whoever said that was having you on. Haswell is a way behind AMD in iGPU capabilities, though they are improving.

Edit: You can see some more information if you're interested here:
Anandtech
 
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That article never mentions AMD iGPU at all, so its hard to say. It says it plays back well but not perfectly, and beats discreet graphics from AMD and nVidia - so you may be right that in 24-fps situations it is better but I can't tell with the evidence at hand.

Update: After some googling I found:
More anand
Trinity 23.977
Ivybridge: 23.92
Haswell: 23.97605
Apparently the target is 23.976 so Haswell is closer but not by enough that most people would care.

Update2:
Neither look at their 24Hz performance which is odd, so can't tell for that scenario. Blu-rays are normally 23.976 though apparently, so in that case the Haswell just edges out the Trinity.
 
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The trinity APUs from AMD have a great IGP but the downside for HTPC use will be power consumption.

Think I'd lean to Haswell to be honest as it has amazing power saving features for when the system is idle. The i5 is a quad core so if you wanted to drop in a dedicated GPU for gaming later the CPU has plenty of grunt to cope too :)
 
The APU systems will use slightly less power than Haswell at idle, a lot less than Ivy Bridge. The FM2 chipsets are very power efficient.
 
teppic said:
The APU systems will use slightly less power than Haswell at idle, a lot less than Ivy Bridge. The FM2 chipsets are very power efficient.
Click to expand...

Depends on the APU. My goto APU is the A8K (100W TDP), it's quadcore and the IGP isn't as good as the A10K but it's a nice compromise. Being K editions they can be overclocked (both CPU and IGP) which is also nice.

Even the A6K would do for just watch movies, it's still capable of light gaming too.....

YOUR BASKET
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (PV38G240C0K) £65.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x AMD A6-5400K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor (AD540KOKHJBOX) £47.99
Total : £186.77 (includes shipping : £9.00).



It's a 65W TDP APU so is sucking less juice than it's bigger black edition bros but there are other 65W APUs available
 
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