What's your opinion on this rig? (1 Viewer)

[kiwi1342]

Hi,

a friend of mine introduced me to MP and I am testing it on my pc where I watch tv series etc.

I am so into it now that I decided to build my own HTPC and I thought to get the following pieces:


- mobo: ZOTAC GF9300-A-E ATX per Intel soket LGA 775 2xDDR2 Pci-Exp Integrated : Lan-Audio-Video (link)
- case: ANTEC - Case Veris Micro Fusion 350 Ultra Slim MicroATX (link)
- cpu: INTEL - Pentium Dual Core E5300 2,6 Ghz socket 775 (link)
- mem: OCZ - Dimm Platinum XTC 2 Gb (2x 1 Gb) ddr2 800 mhz (link)
- hd: SEAGATE - Barracuda 7200.12 500 Gb Sata 300 Buffer 16 Mb 7200 Rpm (link)

(Sorry for the italian links )

Anyway I wanted to know if with this rig I can watch h.264, mkw at 1080p easily or will I struggle?

I am going to spend around €350 which is not bad. Do you have any suggestion to make it even cheaper keeping the same case and keeping in mind that I need to watch full HD movies?


thanks

 

[kiwi1342]

? pls post some thoguhts

 

[ryan20021982]

The Nvidia 9300 is plenty for 1080p and the cpu is plenty also, I still have my first htpc in the kids room with a Nvidia 7050 w/ a amd 4200 and it plays all the 1080p movies my newer htpc's play with hardware acc.

 

[Fragga]

I have nerly the same specs.

Without overclock i think your CPU is not fast enough for Full HD. But the Nvidia 9300 is able to decode Full HD with hardware acceleration.
I had only problems to get hardware acc run with W 7 and MP.

But until now i have realy strenge Problems with 1080i (HDTV) specaly soccergames.

 

[dm15644]

AW: Re: What's your opinion on this rig?

Are you intending to use the Zotac GF 9300 ITX board? If so, I have it in operation together with an E3200. No problems at all.

/jayrock

 

[kiwi1342]

Re: AW: Re: What's your opinion on this rig?

Are you intending to use the Zotac GF 9300 ITX board? If so, I have it in operation together with an E3200. No problems at all.

/jayrock

Thanks all for your help. I am going to use a micro atx mobo. Micro itx doesn't have pci-e slot which limit me to upgrade to a better graphic card (if needed) and also I need to add a tv card too!

I am going to install win xp on it not 7.

Is the ION mini itx mobos pretty powerful as people say?

 

[dm15644]

AW: Re: AW: Re: What's your opinion on this rig?

Are you intending to use the Zotac GF 9300 ITX board? If so, I have it in operation together with an E3200. No problems at all.

/jayrock

Thanks all for your help. I am going to use a micro atx mobo. Micro itx doesn't have pci-e slot which limit me to upgrade to a better graphic card (if needed) and also I need to add a tv card too!

I am going to install win xp on it not 7.

Is the ION mini itx mobos pretty powerful as people say?

The nice thing about the 9300 ITX is that you *don't* need another graphics card.

The total bill of material for an ION solution is only about 30€ less than for the 9300 ITX plus Celeron 3200 (it was at the time I made my decision).

I have an ION netbook and I'm not so much impressed about this is some people are. Yes, video playback is fine on ION, but the GUI is much more snappy with the E3200. So for 30€ more you get a system that works excellent compared to something that just works ok.

BTW Zotac has a new revision of the GF 9300 ITX with PCI-E.

You realize that I like the Zotac GF 9300 ITX a lot One of the best purchases in the last 12 months.