HTPC i3 vs i5 CPU and VGA options (1 Viewer)

[Matt404]

Hey all,

I am in the planning process of building my new HTPC to output 1080p to my 64inch Samsung TV. It will pretty much be dedicated to running Mediaportal as well as browsing the net. I will be running 2 - 3 tuners and I have _a lot_ of 1080p MKV files. I also wanted the option of watching 3d movies (although this will probably be few and far between).

So far I am struggling on choosing a CPU. I know I either want an i3-2130 or an i5. But as its not being used for games I didn't know whether there would even be a point having a quad core CPU?

Also I am choosing a reasonable vga card, so most of the h.264 decoding with be offloaded to the GPU.

I also wanted to make use of hardware de-interlacing whilst watching live tv. Do you think this card would do a sufficient job?

So far this is what I have:

CPU: i3-2130 or i5-2320 $139 or $179
MB: Asus P8H77-M-LE $89
VGA: ATI Radeon 1G 7750 $118 or ATI Radeon 1G 7770 $160

Also I will have 4GB DDR3 and was thinking about a 60GB SSD for OS.

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

[VdR]

I just build a client with an i3-2125, using the on-board graphics. Works like a charm.

Since you do not use this for games, why invest in such an expensive video card? I'm not sure about h/w de-interlace, I'm not even sure what my clients do, I just never had an issue.

 

[Matt404]

Thanks for your reply,

I am unsure how much load Vector adaptive de-interlacing puts on the GPU, but thought one of those cards should do the job. I would like to be able to watch a 1080p movie whilst recording 1 or more tv stations without worrying about running into any problems.

Cheers