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2012-02-22, 13:40
(This post was last modified: 2012-02-22, 14:03 by nhsman.)
Hi All. Please can you have a look at the HTPC I intend to build in the near future. My purpose is to have well specified future proof HTPC than I can extend in the future. Also I require flawless XBMC experience with most heavy skins like AEON MQ. Also I don't want to dig too deep to my pocket $$$.
The components are:
AMD Llano A6-3650 2.60GHz Socket FM1 4MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
ASUS F1A75-M - motherboard - micro ATX - Socket FM1 - AMD A75 - Socket FM1
Kingston 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Memory Kit CL9 1.65V
OCZ Agility 3 SATA III 2.5" 60GB Solid State Hard Drive
Novatech Vision Media Centre Case
Total cost ~ £300
So what do you think guys?
Regards.
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I'd still steer far away from OCZ drives. At least in the USA, there are deals on them every other day, which makes me think people aren't buying them normally. Which begs the question, why? Well, I'm pretty sure I know why...
I just gave out a similar build to a couple of friends that are going to join the club, I haven't seen them in action yet. On paper, those appear to blow the doors off my current build, and I run AeonMQ3 without a hiccup.
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That's what I've heard about OCZ SSD but I've picked up OCZ Agility 3 because is cheap and has really good reviews on Newegg, Amazon and Ebuyer. It must be something in it that people buys them and leaves positive reviews.
Maybe someone who own it can say more?
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I own one and went through the RMA shuffle. I know someone else who's returned his OCZ twice and is now sittig on a dead SSD and won't bother with the RMA process. Both are Vertex 2, but I've had bad OCZ power supplies and SSDs now. I can't/won't recommend their products...
Patriot makes a good device... I've got a Mushkin SSD that's been bullet proof. Going to pick up a Corsair today and see how that goes.
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Just for another datapoint, my two vertex 2s have been rock solid and never has any issue, my vertex 1 drive's health degrade quite fast though (according to ssdlife), one of them is down to 15%, but I chalk that up more for Indilinx SSD controller than OSD....
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Thanks for responses, so now I have a lot to think and read about SSDs :-)
How about the other components, is there any reason I should keep away from any of them or they're just OK?
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8G is a lot... But I know memory is cheap these days so it doesn't bother me too much. I have 4G on two machines and 2G on another. Even using Win7 on the 2G machine and I have no troubles.
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Hi All.
Another question is:
Will I benefit using A6-3650 instead of A6-3500. My concern is caused by the fact that in future I want to use PicoPSU 120w to power my HTPC (reduce power) and A6-3500 is TDP 65W instead of 100W.
I don't plan to use it for any gaming or encoding. I will use it to run Windows 7 with XBMC on top and some apps in background (download manager, anti-virus etc). I know that it plays everything flawlessly but my concern is does A6-3500 handle XBMC GUI (Aeon MQ) without any slowdowns (and I mean any).
Now I run ASRock ION330 with XBMCbuntu and it plays media ok but the GUI with heavy skins is a bit sluggish and also tasks like unrar etc. take long time for Atom to complete.
Thanks in advance.
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I'd go 3500... I'm running XBMC under Win7 on a 45W Athlon II 240e processor and running Aeon MQ3 without a problem.
I came from an Atom/ION setup and the above blows it socks off. I'm doing all my unrar, par checks, etc on a file server now though.
