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The0ldman · 2012-12-19, 23:22

I'm looking at building a super cheap small htpc, an itx motherboard is available for about £50 with the AMD 350 processor on it. What kind of performance can I expect with this board and processor? It looks really tempting for the money. Also, are you able to change the cpu fane on boards with built in processors? I'd be running it with a small SSD. Maybe windows 8 or just xbmc. Mainly for catchup tv, netflix, sd videos. Some hd vids.

Also it would only be about £30 - £40 more to upgrade to a pentium motherboard and processor. I realise that the performance will be better but it will need more power and will it put out much more heat? I'm planning on a very small case. Any thoughts would be very useful!

**Dougie Fresh** · 2012-12-19, 23:45

Which case are you planning to use?

If you want the watch Netflix HD, the E-350 is out. Silverlight does not do HW acceleration and the E-350 CPU is too weak for software rendering.

You'll see little difference in power usage and in my experience the Celeron/Pentium chips run fine in mini-ITX cases. I build them all the time and have them myself.

joe_sun · (This post was last modified: 2012-12-20, 00:05 by joe_sun.)

I use an E350 running Windows 7 and it works fine. It's a little slow at times when moving through menus and I can only use the stock skin but it plays 1080p videos with no problems. If I had the chance to do it again I would have spent the extra money and gone with a Sandy Bridge Celeron

As mentioned above Netflix doesn't work all that well with an E350. I could get it to work but it pegged both cores at 100% and it would get very choppy.

The0ldman · 2012-12-20, 00:27

(2012-12-19, 23:45)Dougie Fresh Wrote: Which case are you planning to use?

If you want the watch Netflix HD, the E-350 is out. Silverlight does not do HW acceleration and the E-350 CPU is too weak for software rendering.

You'll see little difference in power usage and in my experience the Celeron/Pentium chips run fine in mini-ITX cases. I build them all the time and have them myself.

After checking out your shop I want the e-i5! Looks amazing. There is a seller on eBay in the uk that has them by the looks of it. Any idea what size power supply would be needed for a 65w cpu?

It's a shame about the amd 350. I don't think it will be long before some decent motherboards with on board cpu's come out. They just have to be strike a balance between cost/performance.

Thanks for the help, its great to be able to get some answers from people that actually have the kit!

**Dougie Fresh** · 2012-12-20, 01:15

(2012-12-20, 00:27)The0ldman Wrote: After checking out your shop I want the e-i5! Looks amazing. There is a seller on eBay in the uk that has them by the looks of it. Any idea what size power supply would be needed for a 65w cpu?

It is a very nice little case. The E-i5 has an internal 120W DC-DC powerboard and usually comes with a 60W AC adapter. For Intel systems, I always use the 84W AC adapter and AMD the 120W. With a Celeron/Pentium/i3 watching a movie is around 40W consumption and with both cores 100% max it's around 70-80W.

(2012-12-20, 00:27)The0ldman Wrote: It's a shame about the amd 350. I don't think it will be long before some decent motherboards with on board cpu's come out. They just have to be strike a balance between cost/performance.

They make very nice OpenELEC machines. If you didn't need Netflix it'd be just fine. I think overall for the most flexibility you're on the right track with spending a bit more and going with the Intel dual-cores. My bedroom HTPC uses the G620 and does everything -- live TV (through WMC), 1080p movies, Netflix HD, etc. without issue.

(2012-12-20, 00:27)The0ldman Wrote: Thanks for the help, its great to be able to get some answers from people that actually have the kit!

You're welcome!

joe_sun · 2012-12-20, 19:20

(2012-12-20, 01:15)Dougie Fresh Wrote: They make very nice OpenELEC machines. If you didn't need Netflix it'd be just fine. I think overall for the most flexibility you're on the right track with spending a bit more and going with the Intel dual-cores. My bedroom HTPC uses the G620 and does everything -- live TV (through WMC), 1080p movies, Netflix HD, etc. without issue.

Does the new openelec bitstream HD audio on a Fusion e350?

PobjoySpecial · (This post was last modified: 2013-05-17, 00:04 by PobjoySpecial.)

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Malosar · (This post was last modified: 2012-12-21, 16:48 by Malosar.)

I assume it's lack of proper driver support or coding difficulties on OpenELEC that prevents it from hardware decoding such things when it does it fine on Windows?

PobjoySpecial · (This post was last modified: 2013-05-17, 00:04 by PobjoySpecial.)

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**Dougie Fresh** · (This post was last modified: 2012-12-21, 18:38 by Dougie Fresh.)

G860 is basically an i3-2100 without 3D, QuickSync and a little less cache so it will perform the same at half the price. The G860 is the "i3-2100 Lite". Same great CPU, half the price Wink

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joe_sun · 2012-12-21, 18:55

(2012-12-21, 03:25)PobjoySpecial Wrote:
(2012-12-20, 19:20)joe_sun Wrote: Does the new openelec bitstream HD audio on a Fusion e350?

No. It also won't hardware decode MPEG-2 video.

An NM70-based motherboard is a better value if you want to use OpenELEC.

Windows will require a Llano A6, Sandy Bridge i3 or above to run seamlessly. There appears to be a hardware decoding issue with Intel on Windows, so Sandy Bridge Celerons/Pentiums may not have enough grunt to software decode high bitrate files (e.g. 40Mbps).

That's what I thought.

I threw in a low profile Radeon 6450 into my E350 machine so I could bitstream the HD running Windows but was hoping to drop back down to openELEC if it allowed bitstreaming.

Malosar · 2012-12-21, 19:31

(2012-12-21, 17:57)PobjoySpecial Wrote: Yep.

Here's the thread if you want to follow along.

ah ok, nothing to do with E350 or fusion in in particular, just limitations of the current acceleration systems.

Quote:fglrx cannot do DTS-HD and True-HD audio. You have to set the your speakers to 2.0 in order to get these formats correctly downmixed.

Ouch? It won't even downmix to DTS/DD? Only stereo?

PobjoySpecial · (This post was last modified: 2013-05-17, 00:04 by PobjoySpecial.)

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Malosar · 2012-12-22, 16:49

I'm sure there are folks at AMD that care, they just don't have the dollars available to allocate to such a niche market. There's no way they're going to get allocated funds to support something that won't get them hardly any revenue, when the CPU division is bleeding so much money.