[PhantmShado]

Hey,

So I looked through the threads, but still am not sure what I should be putting together for a build. I already have a 2.5" 500gb hard drive I'll be putting in and a 5.25" optical bluray drive. I'd like to do a Linux build to save some money on the OS. Now currently I think I've seen that the following combo:
cpu: i3-540
gpu: GTS 430

is the recommended combo for such a thing, but I also saw on the wiki that the cpu does the decoding with xbmc, so what is the need for a video card? Would just an i5-2300 be able to do it right?

Choice of mobo obviously depends on which of these I go with. For case, psu, and ram I think I have:
http://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Alumin...991&sr=8-1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6817371029
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820231310
respectively. Are these good picks?

Thanks.

[poofyhairguy]

but I also saw on the wiki that the cpu does the decoding with xbmc, so what is the need for a video card?

That is old info. If you plan to use XBMC Live then by having an Nvidia GPU you can easily have hardware acceleration. Even a lowly GT210 card will play every 2D 1080p file out there in Linux.

[PhantmShado]

Ok, then for my budget, how are the following picks:
$90 - Silverstone GD05B mATX HTPC Case
$45 - Antec NEO ECO 400C 400W PSU
$115 - Intel Core i3-540 Clarkdale 3.06GHz 4MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Desktop Processor
$70 - Galaxy GeForce GT 430 1GB 128-bit DDR3
$80 - GIGABYTE GA-H55M-S2V LGA 1156 Intel H55 Micro ATX
$41 G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

[poofyhairguy]

So far so good. All together as futureproof as you can get.

[PhantmShado]

I've received other advice that with the nvidia gpu the processor may be overkill and to go with the following cpu/mobo combo instead
$105 - AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core + Biostar A880G+ AM3 AMD 880G HDMI mATX

Do I suffer any real losses by going this way? I think the promise of 3D Decoding was a reason for that video card pick, would that suffer from switching to this cpu?

[poofyhairguy]

Do I suffer any real losses by going this way? I think the promise of 3D Decoding was a reason for that video card pick, would that suffer from switching to this cpu?

I don't think there is a big enough difference that anything noticeable will suffer. 2.9GHZ is right at the line for AMD's and 3D content IMHO.

[PhantmShado]

I'm happy enough being at the line. So long as you think it will support everything now, even if it's close, saving the money is more important to me than future proofing. Sides, even at stock cooling I imagine it has a few hundred megahertz of overclocking in it (though I'll only touch this approach if it comes to it), so at the line should really not be an issue far as I can see.

Thanks for looking it over. Order placed.