- December 31, 2013
- 8
- 0
- Home Country
- Australia
I recently discovered MP when I was looking to build my HTPC. It's just what I wanted but never thought already available in a completed package - great job to the devs!
I built my 1st iteration machine with the following specs:
- A second-hand HP DC7900 Small Form Factor PC from eBay
- Core 2 Duo E8400
- Intel G45 chipset with integrated graphics
- 6GB DDR2 RAM
- Boot drive is an old 500GB 5400rpm drive
- Data drive is a brand new 4TB WD Red NAS drive (Windows doesn't like it as the boot drive - system not UEFI capable)
- Kaisers Baas TV Stick Duo as the tuner (dual DVB-T. on a USB port)
- TV is a Samsung 55" Full HD.
The system gives me stutter-free totally acceptable TV and DVD watching performance, even if it's also recording a different channel in the background. However if I'm to stream to a mobile phone (over local 802.11n Wifi) as I watch TV at the same time the maximum acceptable quality is FFmpeg medium - over that either the phone or TV playback start to stutter or totally freeze once in a while. The machine is also expected to have other roles such as eBay snipping and torrent download and is planned to have a Bluray drive in the future.
QUESTION: I'm planning an upgrade and is wondering where to put my money.
OPTIONS:
1. Relocate the boot drive to an SSD
2. Buy a discrete graphics card - had in mind a Radeon R7 240. Anything over that I'm running into power constraint from the not-economically-upgradable 240W PSU.
3. Upgrade the CPU to Q9550S (same wattage requirement as the current E8400 as I understand it)
4. Even more RAM
5. Something else?
Your opinions appreciated!
I built my 1st iteration machine with the following specs:
- A second-hand HP DC7900 Small Form Factor PC from eBay
- Core 2 Duo E8400
- Intel G45 chipset with integrated graphics
- 6GB DDR2 RAM
- Boot drive is an old 500GB 5400rpm drive
- Data drive is a brand new 4TB WD Red NAS drive (Windows doesn't like it as the boot drive - system not UEFI capable)
- Kaisers Baas TV Stick Duo as the tuner (dual DVB-T. on a USB port)
- TV is a Samsung 55" Full HD.
The system gives me stutter-free totally acceptable TV and DVD watching performance, even if it's also recording a different channel in the background. However if I'm to stream to a mobile phone (over local 802.11n Wifi) as I watch TV at the same time the maximum acceptable quality is FFmpeg medium - over that either the phone or TV playback start to stutter or totally freeze once in a while. The machine is also expected to have other roles such as eBay snipping and torrent download and is planned to have a Bluray drive in the future.
QUESTION: I'm planning an upgrade and is wondering where to put my money.
OPTIONS:
1. Relocate the boot drive to an SSD
2. Buy a discrete graphics card - had in mind a Radeon R7 240. Anything over that I'm running into power constraint from the not-economically-upgradable 240W PSU.
3. Upgrade the CPU to Q9550S (same wattage requirement as the current E8400 as I understand it)
4. Even more RAM
5. Something else?
Your opinions appreciated!