bulding an htpc and have a question

[jkresh]

I will shortly be building an htpc for use in my home theatre. Not looking to spend a lot of money $1000 or less would be good. So I am thinking of either going with a sempron 3100 or just a64 2800+, using my k8n-e and moving my dtr3200+ to a dfi lanparty ut (my memory/processor are seriously limited on the asus, had the msi nfroce3 first and hit proc up to 2.55 and memory at ddr 560 (with 2.8 volts), but it really didn?t work well with the dtr, problems with booting and would only work with 1 stick of memory (at any speed). So that would cost about 240-260 (probably would go with the 2800+). Or I could just move my motherboard and proc and go to a 939 for my main machine, get a 3000+ or 3200+ 90nm and overclock. I would guess I wouldn?t get much of an improvement by going 939 as I doubt I will get much of a clock speed increase, but it probably will only be about $40-$60 more and would leave for more upgradeability on my main machine. To further complicate matters I don?t want to upgrade the 9800aiw yet so I need agp on the 939 board, and I expect to go to a dualcore chip sometime in summer/fall of 05, so will be replacing boards again then. Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Goi]

HTPC is one of the last remaining applications where intel is still a bit stronger than AMD, especially if you'd like to mess around with ffdshow settings. If you're purely using it as a HTPC, you may wanna consider a P4.

 

[jkresh]

I realize a p4 have an advantage, but not in my price range, also considering the limited cooling in the htpc cases I am looking at (probably an 80mm for intake, 60 for out, plus powersupply fans), and the fact that I want the machine to be quiet, I think amd is the better choice. especialy if some of the htpc software makers add 64bit support as that could quite likely close the gap in the htpc arena. Also the fact that I could use a boost in my main system (actualy running into bottlenecks with the processor in some of my thesis work) means using some parts I have and upgrading main system makes more sense then spending more money on parts for the htpc.

 

[mongster]

Your specs are overkill for an HTPC. A P4 2.0-2.4 GHz should suffice. What's more important for me is the availability of optical/coaxial digital out on the sound card/mobo and s-video out/dvi on the video card. That way you can get Dolby Digital/DTS/Dolby Digital EX/DTS-ES/whatever digital format (hehe) on your home theater.

My current humble HTPC:
P4 1.5 GHz Willamette (yep, the very first P4!!!)
Intel D850GB mobo
256 MB RDRAM
PowerColor ATi 9600SE 128 MB DDR 64-bit AGP8x running on AGP4x with S-video out
Diamond Monster MX400 sound card connected via coax cable to Yamaha RX-V420 A/V receiver
Asus 16x DVD-ROM
Cyberlink PowerDVD 5

This setup plays all current DVDs with no problems.

Just spend your money looking for a nice SFF/HTPC casing. Hehe.

 

[Goi]

jkresh, if that's the case, try to get the Clawhammer A64s. Cache matters for HTPC apps such as ZP+ffdshow, that's why the P4EEs perform better than the regular Northwoods.

mongster, if you're only watching DVDs without any post processing, then yes even a 1GHz machine would do. Add ffdshow into the mix, with double DVD resolution resizing, sharpening, denoise3d, and even the A64FX quickly run out of steam.

 

[jkresh]

actualy I may be using got all media with a fusion hdtv card, so specs are far from overkill, plus would like it to last a while. Motherboard has optical out, and will go with a seperate card if it becomes necessary, will get a 9600 and use dvi out to the plasma.