- May 9, 2007
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Looking to replace an e8400 based system (Mobo died) that will be used as a front end box for blu-ray discs (not mkv rips), other media and occasional gaming including pcsx2 (I might throw CoD on there down the road as I did enjoy WaW and it would be fun to play on the big screen). I have a dedicated gaming/workhorse i5-3570k/nvidia 660ti. But I would like the htpc to last 3-5 years until 4k becomes mainstream when I’ll upgrade my 720p projector and build a new box or demote my current desktop to htpc duties.
I have an old radeon 4870 512mb card and can’t decide between the following cpus.
A6-5400k super cheap and potential to leave out the 4870 and save power/noise
Pentium 2120 ivy bridge
Might be nice having the same mobo socket as my current desktop for future troubleshooting, but I’m concerned about ivy bridge’s troubles with frame loss on playback. Would this even apply if I’m using a discrete card?
Pentium 3220
haswell avoids the above issue at the cost of not being interchangeable with my current desktop
A6-6400k same as 5400k but a little nicer
Athlon x4 750k more cpu for the buck when paired with the 4870 which is more powerfull than any of the apu’s. I’d undervolt the cpu to put it more in line with a 65w tdp to save power/heat
A8-6400k this might stretch the budget. Though I figure that by using this instead of the 750k/4870 combo, realistically I might save enough power over the 3 years to justify the extra $30 or so.
A10-5800k/6800k these would stretch the budget. But would be the best performance without using the discrete card. Is there enough difference to justify the added cost over the a8-6400k though?
The intel build would be a little quieter and use less power compared with the Athlon x4 750k, but how would performance compare? If one of the apus is plenty powerful to run emulator games (especially PCSX2) then I’d lean towards that because of the savings in power consumption and noise. Cost is a big concern cause I’d rather spend more on a nicer htpc case (Silverstone gd05 vs nmediapc 1000b). However I also want to be sure that performance of the new build is considerably better than my old e8400 setup. Cause if it’s not I could just buy another mobo and cheap sound card with 5.1 analogue outputs for way less money. Also, anyone know of a good website with lots of htpc based benchmarks? tomshardware is awsome but it is a bit one dimensional.
Thanks
I have an old radeon 4870 512mb card and can’t decide between the following cpus.
A6-5400k super cheap and potential to leave out the 4870 and save power/noise
Pentium 2120 ivy bridge
Might be nice having the same mobo socket as my current desktop for future troubleshooting, but I’m concerned about ivy bridge’s troubles with frame loss on playback. Would this even apply if I’m using a discrete card?
Pentium 3220
haswell avoids the above issue at the cost of not being interchangeable with my current desktop
A6-6400k same as 5400k but a little nicer
Athlon x4 750k more cpu for the buck when paired with the 4870 which is more powerfull than any of the apu’s. I’d undervolt the cpu to put it more in line with a 65w tdp to save power/heat
A8-6400k this might stretch the budget. Though I figure that by using this instead of the 750k/4870 combo, realistically I might save enough power over the 3 years to justify the extra $30 or so.
A10-5800k/6800k these would stretch the budget. But would be the best performance without using the discrete card. Is there enough difference to justify the added cost over the a8-6400k though?
The intel build would be a little quieter and use less power compared with the Athlon x4 750k, but how would performance compare? If one of the apus is plenty powerful to run emulator games (especially PCSX2) then I’d lean towards that because of the savings in power consumption and noise. Cost is a big concern cause I’d rather spend more on a nicer htpc case (Silverstone gd05 vs nmediapc 1000b). However I also want to be sure that performance of the new build is considerably better than my old e8400 setup. Cause if it’s not I could just buy another mobo and cheap sound card with 5.1 analogue outputs for way less money. Also, anyone know of a good website with lots of htpc based benchmarks? tomshardware is awsome but it is a bit one dimensional.
Thanks
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