[Infinion]

I used a Chieftec case, with Chieftec 180w powersupply included.

Still a mini-itx case but it is as high as my Sony receiver and that doesn't bother me. Leaves enough room for good cooling/maybe even passive heatsinks.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chieftec-BT-02B-...541&sr=8-1
Can imagine this is too big (high) for some people, but it suits nice with the rest of the equipment. And it is nice for upgrades in the future when required, it supports a full size GPU. And the PSU is quiet enough.

Also you should calculate what your hardware uses and requires to operate.

Don't think the 80 watts will cover it on the case you mentioned.

[Dougie Fresh]

I run my bedroom HTPC with a Pentium G620 off a 72W AC adapter with a picoPSU. With Prime95 large FFT the maximum power draw is around 60W. That includes 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD, G620, Gelid Slim Silence i-Plus cooler and USB IR receiver. 1080p playback around 30W.

[bluray]

I use a Celeron G540 with integrated HD2000. Since i use this for my XBMC; im not sure why people who use i3/i5/i7 CPU's.
Everything runs fine using the Openelec Intel build, watching 1080p cpu load is at 3% on one core.

In my opinion, people who say its not fast enough. IT is

The Intel G series are fine for 1080P and bitstreaming HD audio. But for those who are planning for 3d, they have to step up to i3/i5/i7 series.....

The G620 in my office can handles just about everything very well other than 3d....

[kilamangiro]

I use a Celeron G540 with integrated HD2000. Since i use this for my XBMC; im not sure why people who use i3/i5/i7 CPU's.
Everything runs fine using the Openelec Intel build, watching 1080p cpu load is at 3% on one core.

In my opinion, people who say its not fast enough. IT is

The Intel G series are fine for 1080P and bitstreaming HD audio. But for those who are planning for 3d, they have to step up to i3/i5/i7 series.....

The G620 in my office can handles just about everything very well other than 3d....

I'm not really a 3d fan so that wouldn't bother me.

Do you know if the celeron will handle emulation? SNES/Megadrive/N64/PSX?

Also, in terms of general windows 7 browsing - is it quick enough?

---

I run my bedroom HTPC with a Pentium G620 off a 72W AC adapter with a picoPSU. With Prime95 large FFT the maximum power draw is around 60W. That includes 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD, G620, Gelid Slim Silence i-Plus cooler and USB IR receiver. 1080p playback around 30W.

Interesting . . . so do you think the Cypto case linked in the OP would be sufficient at 80W?

[mattchapman]

Intel G620 has passmark 2268.
AMD A6-5400K has passmark 1888.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/mid_range_cpus.html

Of course it's the iGPU in the Trinity which makes it special in that price range. That said, emulation relies heavily on CPU and not so much GPU.
For basic emulation though I would think the Pentium would be fine. Have no experience myself however.

Some good emulation info:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=142375

[Dougie Fresh]

AMD A6-5400K has passmark 1888.

That's barely above the Athlon II X2 240e. That's surprising.

[mattchapman]

AMD A6-5400K has passmark 1888.

That's barely above the Athlon II X2 240e. That's surprising.

Yes, I was wondering if it's correct since even the A6-3500 is higher at 2102.

[wsume99]

Well you're comparing a dual core (A6-5400k) to a triple core (A6-3500).

Also, I'm not surprised that a dual core Trinity is barely above an Athlon II. Most of the advances made in Trinity were on the iGPU and power consumption. AMD's strength is not pushing the needle in terms of brute CPU power. They did do a very good job delivering a more capable iGPU.

[bluray]

Well you're comparing a dual core (A6-5400k) to a triple core (A6-3500).

Also, I'm not surprised that a dual core Trinity is barely above an Athlon II. Most of the advances made in Trinity were on the iGPU and power consumption. AMD's strength is not pushing the needle in terms of brute CPU power. They did do a very good job delivering a more capable iGPU.

+1, very well said...

I don't see anything wrong with AMD A6-5400K 3.8GHz Turbo CPU and AMD Radeon HD 7540D iGPU for a powerful low power and cost HTPC......

It's nearly perfect reviews on Newegg and Amazon so far......

[Dougie Fresh]

I don't see anything wrong with AMD A6-5400K 3.8GHz Turbo CPU and AMD Radeon HD 7540D iGPU for a powerful low power and cost HTPC......

It's nearly perfect reviews on Newegg and Amazon so far......

Oh, definitely nothing wrong with it. It's not a judgement. The Athlon II X2 240e is a great HTPC CPU. It's just good to know where it stands if some HTPC task requires a fast(er) CPU.

[mattchapman]

In general for Xbmc what is more important? The CPU or GPU?
When is a strong CPU important and when does a powerful GPU come into play?

[RaggSokk3n]

In general for Xbmc what is more important? The CPU or GPU?
When is a strong CPU important and when does a powerful GPU come into play?

They're equally important, in xbmc they can replace each other.
A cpu can do anything (prosess audio, video and all other kinds of data) a gpu is just that a graphics prosessor.
This makes the AMD apu great for htpc and light gaming - cpu not needed, but if you ever need the extra power your out of luck and might have to change mb+cpu (vs Intel where you worst case scenario have to add a dGPU)

[bluray]

In general for Xbmc what is more important? The CPU or GPU?
When is a strong CPU important and when does a powerful GPU come into play?

A6-5400K CPU have plenty of power to navigate XBMC menus fast and smoothly, and AMD Radeon HD 7540D iGPU will handles blu-ray 1080P video, bitstreaming HD audio, 3d and some games with ease......

[fvtalon]

In general for Xbmc what is more important? The CPU or GPU?
When is a strong CPU important and when does a powerful GPU come into play?

They're equally important, in xbmc they can replace each other.
A cpu can do anything (prosess audio, video and all other kinds of data) a gpu is just that a graphics prosessor.
This makes the AMD apu great for htpc and light gaming - cpu not needed, but if you ever need the extra power your out of luck and might have to change mb+cpu (vs Intel where you worst case scenario have to add a dGPU)

One thing to note here tho is that with the new generation A series AMD chips its a brand new socket. So depending on how long they use this socket there's a good chance in a few years you could just update the cpu without swapping the mobo. Intel on the other hand is moving away from the LGA1155 socket with the next generation of chips, but then the intels have a surplus of cpu power so when that's insufficient there will probably be new mobo features you'd want anyways.

A6-5400k is still well above an atom/fusion build and really only barely lower than the A6-3500. I doubt you'd notice a real world performance difference when you're talking +/- 200 on a passmark score.

Something I keep coming back to with regard to 'future-proofing' is does it even matter? What's going to change in HTPC? If you can do 1080p and 3D smoothly now what else is coming? Unless you're going to game on it the only thing that's going to change in the next 5 years is probably 4K and that will require a new (expensive) TV, probably new 4K Blurays which probably need a new player, and most importantly for the studios to get on board the 4K train and actually provide content. IMHO it will be years before 4K becomes even close to mainstream and I don't see HTPC needs changing much until then.

[plac]

You guys might want to check out the Morex Cases.
I'm fond of the 33 series; which are available on mini-itx dot com
http://www.morexintl.com/