Want to upgrade my HTPC (1 Viewer)

[joshcrd]

Hi all,

Just after some help on how to upgrade my HTPC. I find navigating through the menu in meadia portal to be slow, loading large movie files takes a while. Once they are playing its okay a little jumpy every now and then. I'm happy to spend the money just want to really make it a lot more powerful so its more enjoyable to use.
Here are my current parts;

ASUS E45M1-I-DELUXE M-ITX Motherboard
Hauppauge HVR2200 MCE PCIe Dual Hybrid
Silverstone SG05 Black Cube with 450W
G.Skill F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB ST2000DL003
SSD to run windows and mediaportal (cant remember which brand but I dont think this is the problem)

I'm thinking of maybe buying a new motherboard/CPU and GPU, maybe i5 or i7
Any suggestions without having to change any other parts

 

[SpudR]

Video card and processor?

 

[xetic]

I think a intel i3 is enough... with the Intel HD Grafik

 

[SpudR]

~Dump the intel and get a GT430...

 

[joshcrd]

okay but I want it to be good for a few years, dont mind spending the extra $ for an i5 or i7
which parts above would you remove, and what would you replace them with?

 

[SpudR]

i3 should be fine, the additional power of an i5/i7 would be wasted unless your HTPC isn't a dedicated unit (using for something else) - the GT430 rocks BTW!
64bit Win7 + 8Gb should give you more than enough oomph for the foreseeable...
might be worth posting on the MP2 thread, that might help too...

 

[joshcrd]

i3 should be fine, the additional power of an i5/i7 would be wasted unless your HTPC isn't a dedicated unit (using for something else) - the GT430 rocks BTW!
64bit Win7 + 8Gb should give you more than enough oomph for the foreseeable...
might be worth posting on the MP2 thread, that might help too...

Thanks so that's all I need to buy and it's compatible with the rest of my gear? Should I spend the extra $20-30 and get a 2gb gt440?

 

[SpudR]

Nope - the 430 is great - the 440 is a speed upgrade, if you go that way make sure you get the 1Gb version (or of you can find one the 3Gb version), but I think it's unnecessary.
You'll also need a new mobo, + proc (the memory should be fine but make sure you check it!) - the rest should be fine

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.

i3 should be fine, the additional power of an i5/i7 would be wasted unless your HTPC isn't a dedicated unit (using for something else)

That's true... excerpt for one thing. If you want to use MPExtented to stream TV/Video to e.g. aMPdroid an i3 could be a bit to poor to get the real-time recoding to work properly. If you don't want to use this single feature an i3 is more than enough. Normally (in combination with a GT430) a Sandy Bridge Pentium G or Dual Core Celeron is enough for all MP things.

 

[joshcrd]

thanks for the replies, I'm still learning about building PC's

the ASUS E45M1-I-DELUXE M-ITX Motherboard I have currently has GPU and CPU integrated
are there any others like this available that are a lot more powerful. I don't mind spending the money, I just want a mini itx motherboard with integrated CPU and GPU. Not worried about overkill either, with hardware I would rather be over-spec than just enough to get by

The one I have currently plays most media well, large 1080p files like Avatar are a bit jumpy, also navigating through the skin and all media takes a while to begin playing once I hit the play button

Any suggestions on an all in one mini-itx motherboard with integrated GPU/CPU, like mine above but with much higher specs