General User Looking to Upgrade CPU

[AtenRa]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-a10-a8-a6_2.html#sect0

From your own link, you do understand we are talking about HTPC do you ??
A6-6400K is better for HTPC than even a Core i3 Ivy not to mention Celerons/Pentium. Also, feature wise, Trinity/Richland is more suited for an HTPC than Intel Celerons/Pentiums. And he can upgrade to Kaveri next year and transform the HTPC in to a nice Gaming SSF connected to the TV.
ps: He can even play some games with the A6-6400K at 720p.

 

[ShintaiDK]

From your own link, you do understand we are talking about HTPC do you ??
A6-6400K is better for HTPC than even a Core i3 Ivy not to mention Celerons/Pentium. Also, feature wise, Trinity/Richland is more suited for an HTPC than Intel Celerons/Pentiums. And he can upgrade to Kaveri next year and transform the HTPC in to a nice Gaming SSF connected to the TV.
ps: He can even play some games with the A6-6400K at 720p.

IB is obsolete today, its about Haswell.

And he could just buy a MiniITX case that could fit a discrete card then. Much better and cheaper than constant upgrade for hardly anything. The AMD setup you suggested is simply terrible.

 

[AtenRa]

IB is obsolete today, its about Haswell.

Even Haswell Celerons/Pentiums are inferior for HTPC than Trinity/Ritchland.

And he could just buy a MiniITX case that could fit a discrete card then.

The FM2+ miniITX board i recommended can use a discrete GPU. Also, the A88X is in every way a superior motherboard to the low end Intel H81. Both in features and capabilities.

Much better and cheaper than constant upgrade for hardly anything. The AMD setup you suggested is simply terrible.

Kaveri will get both higher CPU and iGPU performance than any Intel Celeron/Pentium and even Core i3 Haswell. It is time to accept that Intel doesnt have the better product in all categories.
Also, adding a discrete GPU will add to the power consumption, will add more noise for the HTPC system and add more heat to the SSF case. Hardly a wise choice for an HTPC SFF.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You might have missed the power charts in the review:

Plenty of room to fit a discrete card in there in terms of power consumption if you still think he can fit a much more power hungry Kaveri in the A10 6800K league (-5w).

 

[BallaTheFeared]

150w for a HTPC seems a bit excessive.

 

[AtenRa]

You might have missed the power charts in the review:

Plenty of room to fit a discrete card in there in terms of power consumption if you still think he can fit a much more power hungry Kaveri in the A10 6800K league (-5w).

Luxmark power consumption has nothing to do with Gaming or HTPC usage.
There are also the A8-6500T and A10-6700T at 45W TDP if you need best HTPC/Gaming and general performance at lower power usage. Both of them Quad Cores. Adding Discrete GPU to HTPC is not the best choice.

 

[BSim500]

Every CPU since Clarkdale's have had hardware acceleration for Blu-Ray playback, and most "frame doubling" software doesn't max out both cores. I had an i3-530 (one generation older) and it didn't even load 30% of 1 single core usage for general Blu-Ray HTPC usage (and that's with video acceleration disabled) so "HTPC benchmarks" don't really mean a thing when the requirements are so low anyway. For DVD-R / BD-R burning / lossless authoring of recorded TV programmes (or losslessly recording a digital programme stream to disk from a digital TV card), the CPU is hardly used either as it's nearly all IO dependant (SSD vs HDD speed, etc). Same is true of "ripping" to store films on a giant HDD as a video jukebox.

If he already has an i3, then just reuse that. Slightly lower power consumption, essentially zero cost, higher performance vs the A6-6400K in most real world apps and the option of Quicksync for "quick and dirty" H264 video encoding if need be. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?

 

[Arkaign]

I know it will cost more but it is a SSF format with the ability to upgrade to Kaveri if needed to transform it in to a HTPC/Gaming.

Price from newegg.

ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+ FM2+ = $99,99
SILVERSTONE Milo series ML05B = $39,99
FSP Group FSP300-60GHS-R 300W SFX12V 80 PLUS = 39,99
AMD A6-6400K Richland 3.9GHz Socket FM2 65W Dual-Core = $74,99
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 = $39,99
TOSHIBA PH2050U-1I54 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5" = $54,99

Total = $349,94

That doesn't have an OS, a DVDRW, the OP doesn't game, and it has a smaller/slower HDD.

It's not your fault, it's just impossible to beat the value of a prebuilt for this kind of use.

 

[Arkaign]

Adding Windows 8.1 for $90, a DVDRW for $18, and shipping puts that around $490. As opposed to $322 shipped w/warranty.

 

[AtenRa]

Adding Windows 8.1 for $90, a DVDRW for $18, and shipping puts that around $490. As opposed to $322 shipped w/warranty.

Well i have said that my setup was going to be more expensive but it is an SFF format directly made for HTPC.

 

[NTMBK]

Well i have said that my setup was going to be more expensive but it is an SFF format directly made for HTPC.

Actually, the dimensions of the Acer box are 14.45 x 3.93 x 10.61 inches - almost exactly the same as the dimensions of that case you recommended! I would get the prebuilt, but swap out the stock Intel fan for a quieter model. (The Scythe Kozuti looks good, though I have yet to try it out.)

 

[Arkaign]

Well i have said that my setup was going to be more expensive but it is an SFF format directly made for HTPC.

Did you even read any of what I said about the Acer? The AXC600 is :

269mm x 99mm

vs. the Silverstone SFF

350mm x 99mm

It's meant to be horizontal or vertical. Here's a pic of the rear so you can get an idea of just how small it is :

 

[AtenRa]

Did you even read any of what I said about the Acer? The AXC600 is :

269mm x 99mm

vs. the Silverstone SFF

350mm x 99mm

It's meant to be horizontal or vertical. Here's a pic of the rear so you can get an idea of just how small it is :

Ahh my bad, I didnt realize the pic in that site was not of the product. Yeap nice system for the money, although it lucks certain features like USB3.

 

[Arkaign]

Ahh my bad, I didnt realize the pic in that site was not of the product. Yeap nice system for the money, although it lucks certain features like USB3.

True. That may or may not be useful for an HTPC (I like having it regardless, but it's primary value is with very fast external HDDs of course).

This is a good solution (though would still lack front USB 3 ports) if the need arises :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA1DS0DV6321 $19 shipped w/SFF backplate included.

 

[AtenRa]

True. That may or may not be useful for an HTPC (I like having it regardless, but it's primary value is with very fast external HDDs of course).

This is a good solution (though would still lack front USB 3 ports) if the need arises :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA1DS0DV6321 $19 shipped w/SFF backplate included.

Yea nice USB3 card, do we know if the mobo on that ACER has a PCI-e port??
any inside pics of that PC case??

 

[Arkaign]

Yea nice USB3 card, do we know if the mobo on that ACER has a PCI-e port??
any inside pics of that PC case??

Can't find any pics, but I imagine it's fairly typical stuff (eg : single 3.5" HDD spot, single 5.25" front-facing slot, maaaaybe a spare 3.5" slot but probably not haha)

As for slots :

http://www.acer.ca/ac/en/CA/content/model-datasheet/DT.SLJAA.011

1X PCI-e X16
1X PCI-e X1
Wireless N built-in, that's kind of nice

Says 8GB max, so we can safely assume there are only two DIMM slots, though I'd bet 2x8GB would work as the H61 boards do support 2x8GB from my direct experience

Also appears to be available in configs with i5s, so probably any S1155 CPU will work (outside of Xeons probably)

All in all not bad. For a non-gamer it's a great deal.

 

[NTMBK]

All in all not bad. For a non-gamer it's a great deal.

Heck, even for a gamer it's not bad; you could drop a HD7750 in there and have a decent little gaming box to go under the TV.

I would definitely recommend replacing the CPU fan though. My parents have a similar PC (I think it's actually the same case but with a different plastic faceplate), and in such a compact, open case the Intel fan sounds whiny as hell.