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Well after running my atv2 for a few years I have decided to go the "build my own route". I considered buying a zotac ad04 , lenovo q190 and other pre-builts but decided to do my own.
I have purchased the Apex MI-008 case and a Noctura 120mm fan. I am a little undecided which mini-itx mobo to get and cpu/apu....any recommendations?
Saw one review choose :: APU: AMD A4-3400 ($45) and Motherboard: ASRock A75M-ITX ($90) , I like the price but the review was about 6 months ago.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
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What do you want to do with your HTPC?
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2013-05-12, 03:45
(This post was last modified: 2013-05-12, 03:48 by homerjs.)
just xbmc, but the ability to run any skin smooth as butter.
No gaming
I will likely install Win 7. I have an older receiver, does dts and dd , has optical in, no hdmi so the mobo needs optical out.
All my movies are mkv currently 720 because of atv2, but I want to start using 1080 mkvs.
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A long time favorite around here was the A6-3500 and A75M-ITX. The A6-3500 used to be not that much more than the A4-3400 but you get the near top-of-the-line Llano GPU with it. Search here for "A6-PACK".
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2013-05-12, 13:25
(This post was last modified: 2013-05-12, 14:06 by homerjs.)
Excellent, thanks for your help, I am going to go with your recommendation, greatly appreciated
I have decided to go with
ASRock A75M-ITX FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
AMD A6-3500 Llano 2.1GHz
thanks again
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2013-05-18, 05:35
(This post was last modified: 2013-05-18, 05:36 by Dougie Fresh.)
Ideal would be Core i3-3225/Intel DH77DF for the HT-80. That's thest least expensive Intel CPU featuring their best integrated GPU and that motherboad has everything you'd ever need for HTPC. You'd also want a 28mm (1U) CPU cooler and ideally an mSATA SSD.
That said, there are cheaper alternatives. A Intel Pentium G630T with a Gigabyte GA-H61N-USB3 would be much cheaper but would still handle 1080p MKVs and have HD audio support in OpenELEC. It comes with a 1U cooler and you can just get any 2.5" SSD or even just run OpenELEC off a USB flash drive of SDHC card with an adapter.
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Was thinking about i3-3225 cause of the HD 4000. The Intel MO looks good. Thanks, I guess I'll be going the Intel path.
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I did look at the Streacom FC8 case. Really good looking but I couldn't justify the extra $100 (after adding the IR Receiver and Shipping) compared to HT80. The ASRock H77M-ITX seems to have some issues reported, faulty RAM slot.
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2013-05-19, 01:53
(This post was last modified: 2013-05-19, 15:11 by crabbyTech.)
I have decided on the following so far,
Intel Core i3-3225 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor
Intel DH77DF Mini ITX LGA1155 Motherboard
Iwill HT80 mini-ITX
Dynatron T459 CPU Cooler
Plextor mSATA 64GB Mushkin Atlas Series 120GB mSATA
For the RAM, I see Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2 x 2GB) recommended but would the i-3225 be compatible with the 1.65V RAM?
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The Intel DH77DF is nice that is has two USB headers and mSATA. It also has the Intel CIR header if you want to replace the IR receiver with a Inteset Intel CIR receiver.