What 1150 cpu for HTPC

[Megahurtz400]

Grabbed an 1150 mobo from the MM, now need to pair it up with a cpu and ram for my HTPC which does some light gaming.

Looking for something cheap so will be sticking a wanted thread in the MM, doesn’t need to be overclocked.

Am I worth waiting until prices of the 4770 etc come down? as this isn’t really needed, HTPC currently does everything I need it to, but know how hard it can be to get an ITX mobo at times so grabbed one while I could

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Well, I have a 4130 in mine, and it handles it very well. Only reason I'm considering upgrading it to an i5/i7 myself is as the machine is also essentially my backup PC and light bedroom gaming rig (although I am also having to factor in heat and power consumption as well as cost), but the thing is, if you can grab an i3 for 10-30 quid, you're probably better off grabbing that now and then seeing if prices comes down later in the year as the Ryzen 'reshuffle' kicks in. If 2nd hand prices don't change, maybe pickup a nice i5/i7 for a decent price then.

Decent Haswell i7s are still holding pretty high value (again I suspect because only recently more cores and threads have become a wider thing, which is why if Ryzen 3000 shakes this market up, we may see second hand fluctuate more).

 

[OnlyMe]

How much are 4470 going for now? Until games I want to play start using more threads, it's a hard sell for me to move from my 4770k rig, even for a 9700 or 9900 which would give me loads of MB extras like M2 slots etc. If there's no imperative to change, then more of those old chips/systems are going to die and be replaced by necessity rather than get replaced by choice and leftovers sold on.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I've seen i5's going for 50-100 and I7s still going for well over £100. Due to how small the gains were from Haswell to Kabylake beyond clock speed, its probably not surprising. Fingers crossed the market will change this year for those of us looking to upgrade older Haswell machines; faster, higher core count processors coming on to the market at more affordable prices should push the prices of older CPUs down somewhat.

 

[OnlyMe]

No access to the MM for me cause of my low post count Quality over Quantity! - time spent reading should be taken into consideration too

Anyway I'm sure new processors and more importantly in my view new platform features will force us Luddites off our Z87s eventually. But to pay 100+ for a 5 year old processor seems a bit mad to me, only convenience of upgrade like you guys are contemplating would tempt people to do that. I'd expect someone might be more interested in my Z87/4770//RAM/H100i as a combo though, if that could pull in 200+ then its worth doing - although whether it would survive the shipping I don't know.

Even then, a new 1yr guaranteed mb/processor bundle isn't going to cost much more.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

No access to the MM for me cause of my low post count Quality over Quantity! - time spent reading should be taken into consideration too

Anyway I'm sure new processors and more importantly in my view new platform features will force us Luddites off our Z87s eventually. But to pay 100+ for a 5 year old processor seems a bit mad to me, only convenience of upgrade like you guys are contemplating would tempt people to do that. I'd expect someone might be more interested in my Z87/4770//RAM/H100i as a combo though, if that could pull in 200+ then its worth doing - although whether it would survive the shipping I don't know.

Even then, a new 1yr guaranteed mb/processor bundle isn't going to cost much more.

For me it's budget restrictions, and having to replace DDR3 memory with DDR4 is not cheap and therefore completely out the question for me at the moment. I'd happily change/trade my Haswell base to a Ryzen one, but I simply don't have the cash available for this hobby at the moment for optional upgrades (if the system failed it might be a different story, but not for an optional upgrade, I can't justify it); whereas via a few trade-ins, I might be able to get an upgraded Haswell chip which is a slot in replacement and wouldn't require a system rework.

 

[OnlyMe]

Fair enough, if you only have 100 to spend and not 200 then that little upgrade will be just that, a nice little upgrade (and by 'have' I mean 'can justify'...)

Is my post count going up yet?

 

[Megahurtz400]

Well, I have a 4130 in mine, and it handles it very well. Only reason I'm considering upgrading it to an i5/i7 myself is as the machine is also essentially my backup PC and light bedroom gaming rig (although I am also having to factor in heat and power consumption as well as cost), but the thing is, if you can grab an i3 for 10-30 quid, you're probably better off grabbing that now and then seeing if prices comes down later in the year as the Ryzen 'reshuffle' kicks in. If 2nd hand prices don't change, maybe pickup a nice i5/i7 for a decent price then.

Decent Haswell i7s are still holding pretty high value (again I suspect because only recently more cores and threads have become a wider thing, which is why if Ryzen 3000 shakes this market up, we may see second hand fluctuate more).

My HTPC is my backup gaming/test rig as well, which is why i'm keen to keep it updated. Can I afford to? Not really, but i'm really getting addicted to PCs and tinkering with them again.

Fair enough, if you only have 100 to spend and not 200 then that little upgrade will be just that, a nice little upgrade (and by 'have' I mean 'can justify'...)

Is my post count going up yet?

Just get int GD and start spamming in there lik everyone else

 

[Avalon]

For me it's budget restrictions, and having to replace DDR3 memory with DDR4 is not cheap and therefore completely out the question for me at the moment. I'd happily change/trade my Haswell base to a Ryzen one, but I simply don't have the cash available for this hobby at the moment for optional upgrades (if the system failed it might be a different story, but not for an optional upgrade, I can't justify it); whereas via a few trade-ins, I might be able to get an upgraded Haswell chip which is a slot in replacement and wouldn't require a system rework.

8GB of Crucial ballistix DDR4 is sub £40 new regularly, it may not be the fastest/best, but when the primary role is HTPC, it’s more than adequate. Z270 boards go as low as £25-35ish used and an i5 6500 is circa £60, that’s a full set-up for not a lot if that’s what you want. Prices are from eBay/MM based on a recent build I did for a friend.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

8GB of Crucial ballistix DDR4 is sub £40 new regularly, it may not be the fastest/best, but when the primary role is HTPC, it’s more than adequate. Z270 boards go as low as £25-35ish used and an i5 6500 is circa £60, that’s a full set-up for not a lot if that’s what you want. Prices are from eBay/MM based on a recent build I did for a friend.

Not much point of me going to a six series, if I was going to spend money and not just part exchange etc, I'd want to go whole hog to current-gen Intel or AMD, and my build is ITX which pushes motherboard costs right up due to them not being as common. (my particular machine is pretty small although not quite NUC small!)
I'm not fond of hardware off eBay as a rule either, too many bad experiences. As it is managed to pick up an Intel Xeon 1231v3 for just shy of £100 (essentially a 4770 better binned with the IGPU disabled); which for what I wanted and needed is absolutely perfect (not like IPC has increased much since Haswell), and no worries about PSU etc, so was worth sticking with the current build.

Actually seems to slightly beat the i5-6500 in performance too as well from comparisons I've seen, so as I essentially paid nothing and just traded some older stuff in, suited my purposes well; and this should now last me for another 2-3 years in a HTPC/light gamer/backup PC role

I wasn't going to actually go for it right now, but the simple fact I was trading in some stuff anyway...well it just kinda made sense to do it all now, and then I can just hold off for a few years on anything big, Haswell i7/8GB/1050TI will still happily handle anything at 1080p if you're not fussed at about Ultra settings, and handle anything HTPC wise flawlessly.

 

[Participant]

I've still got a Q6600 and 1050 for my sitting room HTPC. It plays things like Lego Superheroes fine.