New Build - Is it powerful enough? (1 Viewer)

[fangio99]

I am looking to buy the following to upgrade my HTPC.

Asus P8H61-M Pro Rev 3.0 Motherboard
Intel Celeron G530 Processor
Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333MHz HyperX CL7 XMP Memory

Currently only using the system for Playback of files. No TV card in the system.

Will this handle HD x264 video or do I need a better processor or video card?

Thanks,

Fangio.

 

[Owlsroost]

No personal experience of that CPU, but it should be OK for progressive (non-interlaced) video playback - it might struggle with interlaced HD content e.g. HDTV (the GPU isn't very powerful), but adding a video card would fix that.

Tony

 

[fangio99]

For the moment I only watch 720p or SD video as the TV is only 720p. I want something better than my current AMD Athlon 3000+ system that will play 720p smoothly. I can add new hardware later as needed then.

I wanted to get the basics of a system that would do for a few months and then add to it over time. New case, graphics card, SSD, DVB cards etc.

Fangio

Incidentally what Graphics card would I need if I wanted to add in DVB-T/T2 and DVB-S/S2 and Full HD video playback?

 

[DragonQ]

I have an Intel G530 paired with an nVidia GT 430. Plays everything using LAV Filters (for GPU decoding). This CPU is the best bang-for-buck I've ever bought (£36).

I think a G530 by itself will handle everything except 1080i25/1080i30 using EVR as your renderer. It might struggle with 1080i but I wouldn't have thought so. If you want to use MadVR as your renderer, then you'll definitely need GPU decoding (either QuickSync with fast RAM and overclocked IGP, or nVidia CUDA) so that your CPU is free to do resizing and post-processing - see this post for more details.

 

[hoborg]

@fangio99:
You should build your HTPC on AMD A8-3800 APU. This APU have four core CPU, is cheap, have only 65W TDP and good GPU inside one chip (Radeon HD 6550D - 400 stream processors).
Very effective solution.
Just get 1866 MHz memory modules to unlock full power this great piece of hardware.
BTW, you can even play a modern games on that APU.

 

[DragonQ]

Hmm, the A8-3800 is cheap? Looks to me like it costs more than a Celeron G530 + GT 430, even without factoring in the more expensive RAM. You also couldn't set custom refresh rates (nVidia only) to get proper 23.976p output. Gaming would also be better with the Intel/nVidia setup since the GPU is better (with such low-end GPUs, CPU power wouldn't affect FPS much). The Celeron would be faster than the Llano in 1-2 threaded applications, with the Llano obviously being faster in 3-4 threaded applications.

According to AVS, the only thing that A8 Llano can do that G530 + GT 430 cannot is on-the-fly 2D to 3D conversion.

 

[mikehassy74]

A little back story would help I suppose. My friend wants to stream his LoL games on Twitch and his current build doesn't cut it so we've decided to upgrade. My idea was to upgrade him to a current gen i5-3570k CPU with, new z77 mobo, and 8gb of 1600 DDR3 RAM. Costs would be around ~365 USD, but of course he doesn't like that idea. Instead I thought of possibly just upgrading his old CPU to a newer one and upping his RAM.

 

[kiwijunglist]

I am looking to buy the following to upgrade my HTPC.

Asus P8H61-M Pro Rev 3.0 Motherboard
Intel Celeron G530 Processor
Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333MHz HyperX CL7 XMP Memory

Currently only using the system for Playback of files. No TV card in the system.

Will this handle HD x264 video or do I need a better processor or video card?

Thanks,

Fangio.

^ I don't like this build at all

AMD A4-5300 (includes onboard HD6480D GPU)
Cheap FM2 socket motherboard
Cheap 4 GB DDR3 1866 or 1600 RAM

Much faster and better GPU performance for the same price. This would also work with 1080i if you ever add an HD TV tuner card.

 

[fangio99]

This thread is over a year old...

 

[receiverbox]

Going to build up a system with Intel B75-Chipset and Celeron G1610 in a few weeks - asap the hardware is in my hands. Will let you know about the graphic performance. The price and power-consumption of this configuration is quite fair.