Upgrade Athlon X2 4850e HTPC build? (1 Viewer)

[TiredHornet]

Hi guys

My first HTPC is getting kind of old. Or at least it kinda feels that way. So I was wondering what would be the best/cheapest way the upgrade for better performance.

Here are the current specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4850e @ Scythe Ninja Mini
Mainboard: Asus M3N78 with NVIDIA GeForce 8300
Ram: 2x 1GB DDR2
HHD1 (System + MePo): Seagate 80GB 5400 RPM
HHD2 (Media): WD 1TB EADS 5400 RPM
OS: Windows 7 x86
MePo: 1.2.1
Skin: Avalon

While the system plays even FullHD videos quiet nicely, the MePo GUI is sort of sluggish. I think the best upgrad would probably we to buy a better GPU (e.g. Geforce 520) and an SSD.

But what do you guys think? A input is greately appreciated.

Cheers

TiredHornet

 

[elsmandino]

Hi there,
Until last weekend, I was running an Athlon II x2 240e with 12GB of RAM in a M4A785TD-M Evo motherboard.
I ran Windows 7-64 bit and MP off a Crucial M4 64GB SSD.
I had some problems with MP (I am currently using 1.2.2) always being a bit laggy and had problems with it constantly crashing/freezing. I have just taken the MSI H61-E35 motherboard with i3-2105 out of my desktop and put it into my Mediaportal Server and I cannot tell you how much better it is. The problem is I cannot tell you exactly why - the CPU is faster than the Athlon Chip (though MP does not need anything particularly fast) and the inbuilt HD3000 graphics are a lower spec than the HD4200 integrated graphics I was using on the AMD board (maybe it is my imagination, but the picture quality seems to have improved on my TV).

I can only put the improvements down to the much new technology of Sandybridge.

I would wait for a few further comments from some of the real experts on here, but I would say that a cheap Sandybridge motherboard and low spec Chip would be a decent upgrade worth considering - e.g. G620. The I3 chips are probably a little overkill for a standalone setup of Mediaportal (and are still quite pricy).

Hope that helps.

 

[TiredHornet]

I have a GT220 lying around which I'm gona try this weekend. Which should do a lot better than the Geforce 8300 IGP. I'll tell you if there is a difference in performance. If after using the GT220 and upgrading to a SSD does not help, I might change to a Intel setup.

Cheers

 

[1stdead]

The problem is that mediaportal gui is terrible old and has not been well written to the aspects MP has grown into. MP2 is rewritten and doesn't have these problems.

 

[TiredHornet]

The problem is that mediaportal gui is terrible old and has not been well written to the aspects MP has grown into. MP2 is rewritten and doesn't have these problems.

So you are saying that the GT220 will not influence GUI performance, because of the way MP is coded? To bad MP2 is still in alpha...

 

[1stdead]

Yeah i don't think it changes much.... But try and see

Yes indeed. However it will take much time before it will be as good as moving pictures / mptvseries. You can try XBMC. Its blazing fast however it is very limited in its options and their skins have kinda low WAF compared to Avallonis.

 

[TiredHornet]

I tried XBMC once but didn't really like it. Maybe because I was already used to changing all kind of settings in MP.

 

[1stdead]

Yeah, i feel the same way

 

[TiredHornet]

So, I bough the Geforce GT520 and MP Avalon Skin runs a lot smoother now. Still not quiet as nice as my newer Intel Pentium G850 HTPC, but a lot smoother than with the Geforce 8300 IGP. So for around $50, this was definitely a very nice upgrade. Next step will be replacing the old 80GB System-HDD with a SSD...

Cheers