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HTPC Upgrade from Atom/ION to Celeron or i5?

EXCellR8

EXCellR8

Diamond Member
One of my lesser-used SFF systems is really struggling with what I'd consider to be not much instruction. It's an old DDR2 based ITX Zotac ION board with an Atom dual core and it's mega slow. I really only use the computer to watch HD movies and browse the web from time to time, but since Windows 10 was installed earlier this year it can't really handle very much.

Case that is used doesn't have a power supply but I do have a spare ITX board with LGA 1155 socket and 12V power prong. I only own one Ivy chip and it's in use and would be overkill anyway, so I need to find a cheapo. I would prefer a quad core but I don't really need the system to be fast, just be able to do more heavy lifting and there is no need to overclock.

My initial thought was just grab a used i5-2400 but is there a more practical or cheaper solution? I don't usually shop around for the lower end CPUs very often.

I suppose I could get away with an i3 since I only use it for movies and storage. Motherboard will have either 4 or 8 gig DDR3 memory and integrated Intel GPU with HDMI or DP

Suggestions?
 
I use i3-4170 with SSD in my HTPC. I still feel a bit dirty for using i3, but it works just fine for its intended purpose. I use it for music/1080p videos. Easy to cool and power efficient.
 
Don't get an old Sandy Bridge chip, the video decoder is very out of date. Better off with a low end modern part, like a Skylake i3.
 
1155? That's going to mean Ivy Bridge as the most up to date. Pick one that has the HD4000 graphics, I guess.
i3-3225?
 
It'll be a huge difference. I have a Skylake i3 NUC and it's sublime to finally have something that works with everything perfectly (was on a hodgepodge of Apple TV, Chromecast and DLNA in the past).
 
Seems like there is a just a little jump in price from Ivy i3 to i5... might just grab a 3450 or 3470 and call it done. 6MB cache is supported I believe.

This situation makes me kinda miss my old eWaste job at the moving company--free previous processors all year long.
 
EXCellR8 said:
Seems like there is a just a little jump in price from Ivy i3 to i5... might just grab a 3450 or 3470 and call it done. 6MB cache is supported I believe.

This situation makes me kinda miss my old eWaste job at the moving company--free previous processors all year long.
Click to expand...
Both are HD2500 GT1 which is far worse for video than the 3225 with HD4000 GT2...
 
Quite a good point... as I will be using the board's HDMI or DP.

I haven't bought anything yet, but now I'm kinda pinned to Ivy i3, which is fine. Will be miles better than the Atom that's for sure.
 
Ended up with the 3220 for under 40 bucks, so not bad.

I don't really understand ebayers though... there was a bidding war for the same chip that went up to $55.00 plus SH and then I put the only bid on the one I got and nobody outbid me... neat.
 
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