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Which should I buy for a HTPC

R

rdegler

Member
I have a chaintech VNF3 Mobo and everything else except a processor and ram?

this htpc machine will be to record TV and Movies?

which is the better purchase

AMD 64 w/ 256 ram
or
Sempron 2600 with 512 ram

Both are around the same price.

thanks

roy
 
I would say get the Sempron 2600+ (90nm one!!) and the 512MB of RAM and a quiet HD with lots of Space.

When i upgrade i plan on putting my AMD64 2800 and 1024MB of ram for my HTPC but underclock the CPU to Sempron 2600 speed 1.6Ghz. THe lower clock would allow not as much heat to build up and can have a slower moving fan on it.

Hope this helps
 
The Duron 1.8 GHz sold at newegg and tigerdirect for $43 US or $68 CDN at tigerdirect.ca is more powerful than the Sempron 2300+, 2400+, is about the same as the Sempron 2500+ and can almost catch up to the Sempron 2600+. (It's an Athlon 2200+ with less cache.)

The Athlon XP 2700+ is $81 US at newegg and is one of the better deals because it beats those CPUs easilly but doesn't cost too much.

The reason you may not have gotten any answers is because you named a socket A processor than one for socket 754 or 939. The Athlons for socket As are known as Athlon XPs, not 64s.
 
Oops, just realized I exagerated there a little. The Athlon XP 2700+ does beat the Sempron 2600+ but not by that much. The Athlon XP 2800+ does a better job of beating those other CPUs. That one is $88.

Well, I suppose. They're all kind of close to each other anyway. So many of them...
 
Get the cheaper one, with a hardware encoder/decoder card. Hardware processing of the video will make it perform like a champ over software methods.
 
The sempron (since it's a 90nm chip) will be easier to cool which will lead to a more silent pc. The 2800+ might be nice to look at, as well, since it has 2x the cache as the 2600+. Either can probably hit 2.1GHz without raising the vcore so you'd have a pretty powerful cpu without too much extra heat. If you can get an AMD64 enabled sempron then you'd be in even better shape, since 64bits actually does help encoding.
 
superfly there are semprons that are socket 754.

Lord Banshee you've both got a point there about the system being quieter.

TGS I have a hauppauge PVR 150 for the encoding.

At this time I will mostly be using the computer to get tv shows on cd and dvd to send to my wife(out of town for 6 months). She is without TV but does have a computer to view the shows.

As time goes by I will expand the system to truly become a HTPC for TV and Music.
 
Well, they're supposed to be shipping already but I did a quick search for them and didnt find any...
 
Originally posted by: rdegler
superfly there are semprons that are socket 754.

Lord Banshee you've both got a point there about the system being quieter.

TGS I have a hauppauge PVR 150 for the encoding.

At this time I will mostly be using the computer to get tv shows on cd and dvd to send to my wife(out of town for 6 months). She is without TV but does have a computer to view the shows.

As time goes by I will expand the system to truly become a HTPC for TV and Music.
Click to expand...

As long as you have the hardware encoder, you should be fine regardless of what CPU you use. If it's a HTPC box, I would go for the slower processor as noise would be my key issue. Lower clocks will be easier to cool with a lower noise heatsink/fan combo.

Unless, you plan to do some video reencoding later with a hardware based encoder card it's hard to justify an overly powered cpu for functions it won't be utilizing.

 
Its all depends on if you plan on doing High Definition Output. If so then get at least something rated or overclocable to 3.2Ghz. This will allow you 1080P ability with a good video card which should be at least a Radeon 9500.

look at the specs here for playing HD WMV files.
www.wmvhd.com
 
HD support The specs on HD supporting GPUs. Though I think that it's still broke for the GT and ultra. People report with the vanilla 6800 and 6600 that the purevideo works correctly.

So with the Happ 150 and a 6600, you should get some good SD encoding and HD playback. Or spring for a hardware based encoder HD card. If you look at the minimum requirements on the hardware cards, you can see in the 400-500MHz range for CPU power. For an HTPC setup low power and hardware based cards will always be better, unless of course your speaker system is going to be blasting out sound to cover the delta fans on your 3GHz+ chip. 😉
 
thanks all for the input.

I am going with a sempron and the 512 ram.

than will keep the cost a under 120, I have all the other components already.

Once I have it build I will start the adventure down the software selection.

The computer will occasionally be doing browsing and office application work at times,

 
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