I3 for htpc ???

sonicmarx

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Nov 23, 2009
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Hi i recently upgraded my i7 920 to a 980x. At the moment my 920 is back in its box. I would like to build a htpc so my question is, should i build one from my 920 or do i sell it and build a i3 setup? I know a 920 is over the top and to make a cheap 1366 build is obviously not cheap. So is the i3 built in gpu capable of doing 1080p hd content of all sorts? i am really looking at going cheap on this build due to the fact that its not going to be in use a lot. Only for movies and music basically. if i need a separate graphics card - which one can i go for and it must have an analogue video out and dvi or hdmi (passive cooling). I am looking at a i3 560, motherboard, 4gb ddr3 ram and a psu. Unfortunately my old p4 3.2ghz with a 3850 agp card is apparently not supported for rendering of hd videos and craps off with anything above 720p

Any suggestions would be awesome. I can look also at maybe an i5 but then i can rather keep my 920. I even looked at socket 775 setups that is really dirt cheap with pentium dual core.

Cool and thanx in advance
 
I say sell off all of your old parts and put the money towards a new Sandy Bridge based HTPC. Next month, Intel will be releasing more SB CPU's under the Pentium brand that will be great for a low power HTPC, if you can wait a bit.