Planning new Llano based SFF system

Quddy

Quddy

Quddy

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28 May 2004
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I am planning to replace my current Late 2009 21" iMac with Windows 7 based ITX system. Currently deciding the specs and the new AMD Llano chips seem ideal.

Was considering Sandy Bridge chips but I don't need maximum cpu speed as I find my current system more than enough and only occasional gaming. Will be used as a general purpose PC but mainly as a HTPC which is why I chose AMD as their video quality is apparently better according to some review (deinterlacing etc).

Few questions:

1. How does the new A3800 compare to my current combo of Core2Duo E7600 & Mobility Radeon HD 4670?

2. Can it support resolutions higher than 1080p? Planning to get 27" monitor and hopefully a motherboard with DisplayPort. Kind of confused as to whether HDMI supports this?

3. Current iMac is almost silent, which is important for me, so would it be possible to build a really quiet small system around the A3800?

Thanks.
 
Llano is perfect for HTPC and general purpose pc duties.

1. The cpu side of things on Llano is more than enough for what you want it for.
The onchip GPU has a lot of new decode features for media playback compared to your Radeon M.

2. HDMI tops out at 1920x1200 Display port tops out at 2560x1600.
There are plenty of Llano motherboards with Display port but not all of them so check before you buy! (they all do HDMI)

3.Silence is easy with just about any case these days as long as it has fans you can take out and replace/undervolt any noisy ones.
Fans with PWM headers can be plugged into the motherboard and silenced in the bios.
The heatsink supplied with retail boxed Llano's can be silenced in most motherboard bios.

That 27" monitor you are considering.
I've found personally that most new games I've tried on my Llano HTPC have to be run at 720 with low/medium gfx settings.
So just be aware that you aren't going to run the latest games at the monitors native resolution with all the eye candy on full.

Find the money for a SSD boot drive in the budget,it's the best money you can spend in any new system.
While you can get away with 40gb boot drives personally I'd go with a 60gb drive.
 
Last edited:
Great info, thanks.

Not a heavy gamer so that's fine. Prefer lots of screen space when I'm working so that's why considering the 2560x1600 res but 1080p may be better for movies so not sure which to get yet but DisplayPort would definitely give me more options in the future.

I heard the IntelHD3000 graphics has difficulty displaying 23.976 fps movie content. Does this Llano have the same problem?

Definitely planning on getting an SSD and 60gb sounds like an ideal size with a 2TB HDD for storage.

ASUS F1A75-I Deluxe motherboard seems to have everything! Not sure if it is available yet. I am currently in Singapore so may be able to pick one up as Asus is quite popular here in the IT shops.

Thanks.
 
Intel had the 24fps issue from previous gen, but you can fix it by adding a hd6450/gt430 easily, but yeah APU has a hd6550 built in so it does not have the 24 fps issue

24fps ( this refers to the issue on intel igpu only htpc where you get a repeated frame every 40 seconds)


If you are going AMD APU dont get 1333mhz ram, get 1600mhz or if your budget can stretch 1800mhz. The faster the ram the better the performance of the CPU + GPU.
 
Quddy said:
I heard the IntelHD3000 graphics has difficulty displaying 23.976 fps movie content. Does this Llano have the same problem?
Click to expand...

I play a lot of blu ray (my only 24p source) and it's not dropping frames and I'm quite a media purist.

When I tried an i5 build using the hd3000 onboard gfx it certainly was dropping frames a lot and quite noticably.

Quddy said:
Definitely planning on getting an SSD and 60gb sounds like an ideal size with a 2TB HDD for storage.
Click to expand...

That's an ideal starting point.

Quddy said:
ASUS F1A75-I Deluxe motherboard seems to have everything! Not sure if it is available yet. I am currently in Singapore so may be able to pick one up as Asus is quite popular here in the IT shops.
Click to expand...

Aye lots of people waiting for that board,it's incredibly feature packed.
It has started to become available in the uk for pre order,so you should be able to find one to buy in HK without much hassle.

Good luck with the build and let us know how you get on.
 
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