HTPC: ATI 1250 or wait for G35

[latch]

Title says it all. Should I build an HTPC around 1250 or wait for G35? Mostly used for playing back movings, playing music on the system and such.

 

[heyheybooboo]

ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 is pretty stout. Don't know was coming down the pipe as a refresh but it's asfe to say it will be 'improved'. I guess we still don't know what to expect from G35 - I've never been a big fan of Intel video btw.

Realtek ALC889A seems quite acceptable as well . . .

 

[Denithor]

For once I agree with heyheybooboo.

The 1250 has better integrated graphics than the Intel board will offer so if you aren't planning to get a discrete video card go for that model.

However, if you plan to get a separate video card, the g35 will probably offer better overclocking performance if that's a factor. If going this route, consider the passively cooled XFX 8500GT OC for $65 (after MIR). This card will be completely silent in your HTPC, comes equiped with HDCP (if you want to get into HD-DVD or BluRay on your HTPC), and will handle video decoding on the GPU instead of loading down your CPU. With this card you could easily build use an e2140 ($70) or even a Celeron 420 ($43) and still have good video performance when using the supported formats.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Denithor
For once I agree with heyheybooboo.

The 1250 has better integrated graphics than the Intel board will offer so if you aren't planning to get a discrete video card go for that model.

What's next? Dogs and cats living together? :laugh:

Check out the AVS Forum Home Theater Computers for great info

And look into the GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H AM2 AMD 690G or ABIT Fatal1ty F-I90HD LGA 775

 

[manimal]

Before I upgraded the onboard video of my F-190HD the onboard did a very good job with playing movies and running MC. I ended up putting a 8800gts in there after getting a GT for my main rig. I may go back to just using the onboard since for what I use it for it was more than adequate. If you want to play HD sources I would get a H262 accelation card so that stuff can be offloaded from the CPU.

 

[8steve8]

a reality check:
i have used an intel G965 board with a e6300 for 8 months
now i am using a asus 690G board with a 4400+ A64 65nm.


the bottom line is this:
the G965 chipset was a pleasure to use... no crashes, no incompatibilities, ran warcraft3 and DOTA beautiful at 1600x1200.

the 690g board has issues with certain ram especially (trancend ddr2-800 CL4 1.8v) ram (if i gave it 2.1v it would work for a few hours, than crash... if i gave it 2.1v and lowered the speed to ddr2-667 it would work stable) (note tried 2 diff pairs of this ram , which work fine on an intel board) , but the 690g worked fine with regular kingston Value ram DDr2-800 at 1.8v.

With this Kingston ram which it seems to like, Warcraft3 and DOTA are unplayable (5fps-15fps) even with medium-low quality settings at 1280x1024....
i have done many different installs of vista and xp... with the same results..

I just ordered a G35 board today and im getting rid of this ati/amd chipset... it is simply a pain and not fast at all...
I was hoping AMD/ATI chipsets were finally mature enough to use, but from my experience they need a few more years of dev.

another issue with the 690g: the onboard video was so bad i would plug in a nvidia 6200TC pci-e card, and although once or twice i got it to work, most of the time it would not disable the onboard video and I would not get any picture out of the pci-e card, regardless of bios setting for which video to try first.

after reading good reviews i thought it was time to try ati chipsets again, but the reality was as i feared... finicky, immature, weak.