latoski

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Jul 18, 2011
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18,510
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Approximate Purchase Date: till October 2011 (latest)

Budget Range: below or around 1000 USD after rebates (have already some stuff, budget is not a priority)

System Usage from Most to Least Important:
HTPC (watching HD movies, watching TV - DVB-T MPEG4 HD and DVB-S MPEG4, BlueRay movies),
NAS (storing home docs, music, movies for a web access (internal home network, or internet) - e.g. streaming music to android device...),
some minor office work (Excel, Word, e-mail) and some movies edit (Adobe Premiere Elements, Pinnacle Ultimate - minor)

Parts Not Required: case, keyboard, mice, HDD

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: USA = Newegg, CompUSA (I know only that), Poland: Proline, Arest, Komputronik, Agito

Country of Origin: Poland, but shops may be in USA as well

Parts Preferences: I was thinking if ASUS E35M1-M PRO (AMD Zecate) will do the job, but not exactly sure

Overclocking: Rather No, but Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080 and 1366x768

Additional Comments: it should be quiet and have a small power consumption as it is supposed to work almost 24/7, the OS may be Linux (XBMC) or Windows 7 (please provide a better solution)
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I want to bulid a quiet HTPC with the NAS capabilities which consumes small amout of electricity...
The most important and hard for me to choose is mobo + CPU; I do already have one HDD 1TB Green WD Caviar, but should increase the quantity of HDD (at least 2 HDDs in the system), Bluetooth keyboard and mice, and case that will fit everything (there is not a big pressure on space)...

Please advice if that combo (Mobo + CPU) will be suitable for that or too weak:
ASUS E35M1-M PRO
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131697

If that is not sufficient, please provide something else - I do not have preferences if it is intel or AMD - just need to choose the best solution for that... and really low power consuming solution (at least at idle)...

Would also like to know if I should putt additional storage for system (e.g. CF or SSD) or is it enough to use system on one of the HDDs that will be a NAS part...
I have read that the ASUS E35M1-M PRO does not support RAID - but it was only one comment - what is your experience with that?

I will appreciate your help!

PS: for european colleagues - please advice the best (cost/performance) tuner cards: DVB-T (needs to be MPEG4) and DVB-S (MPEG4 as well)...

THANK YOU

 

skibicki

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Apr 19, 2011
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Zacate is too slow. Llano is better for an HTPC.
This page reviews the HD and Blu Ray playback performance of AMD Llano.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/44338-amd-a8-3850-apu-review-llano-hits-desktop-9.html

OS - Windows 7 full - $190

Motherboard - ASRock A75 PRO4 FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157258

CPU - AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103942

HDD - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

Blu Ray drive - SAMSUNG Black Blu-ray Drive SATA Model SH-B123L/RSBP LightScribe Support
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151232

Player - CyberLink PowerDVD 11 Ultra
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832117013

RAM - G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBNT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231424

PSU - FSP Group AURUM GOLD 400W (AU-400) ATX12V /EPS 12V 80PLUS GOLD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104096

Total - $802


 

latoski

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Jul 18, 2011
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18,510
Thanks Skibicki...
Can you estimate the average power consumption of such solution? Am I wrong calculating around 80-100 Watts in Idle mode?
I realize Llano is a great news from AMD, but is there something in between as A8-3850 is really high-scored CPU for the moment - isn't?
Maybe something less powered - e.g. i5 or i3?? what do you say?
Thanks in advance
 

latoski

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Jul 18, 2011
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hmm - thanks one more time for a review - I found out that in IDLE the A8-3850 can really have a small load of around 40Watts... that is something that can be accepted... thus, I believe in reality it will take around 100Wats when wathing movie etc... Need to think it over... ;)
Thanks again!
 

skibicki

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Apr 19, 2011
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Think about the CPU though because the next Llano cpu will probably need a different motherboard. If under powered processors worry you then get Intel Z68 or AMD AM3+.