Kodi Community Forum

Hello, all. When the AMD Llano was announced -- the A8-3850 in particular -- I was pretty excited. It seemed like the perfect processor for a budget (under $500) HTPC setup, and you didn't even have to spend money on a dedicated GPU.

After reading this review however, I'm beginning to wonder if I should go the i3 route instead... then again, the back-and-forth in the comments section of that same article confused me even more.

If I go for the Llano will I have any problems with the following? This is what I want to do with my HTPC: play BluRays (at full 1080@24p), my own movies (1080@60p), play Netflix, Hulu, etc. and play high quality FLACS. I want the quality to be really good, too.

Am I better off going with an i3 + dedicated GPU? If so, what particular components would you all recommend?

Thanks in advance.

what components are recommended?
that's all talked in my HTPC guide...

AMD Llano seems a good APU...
it combines a quad-core + HD6530 video....
it'll play any full hd 1080P video out there
as well as 1080P Netflix & Hulu of course...
you can cook a ince build with it for $300
AMD

[cpu+gpu] Llano A6-3650 Quad-Core 2.6GHz FM1 100W ($120 + $0)
[mobo] ASRock A75M FM1 μATX ($80 + $5)
[case] SILVERSTONE ML03B μATX ($60 + $0)
[psu] Antec EarthWatts 380W ATX12V ($40 + $0)
TOTAL: ($305)

i doubt it'll do native 3D playback tho,,,

eskro Wrote:what components are recommended?
that's all talked in my HTPC guide...

I saw that, and it really was a wonderful guide -- I just wasn't sure if the July stuff was "current", given how fast things change in this market. Didn't mean to make you repeat yourself

eskro Wrote:i doubt it'll do native 3D playback tho,,,

This will probably be an unpopular statement, but... that's just fine by me. I actually dislike 3D, or at least the kind featured in what seems like half of new movies these days...

eskro Wrote:it'll play any full hd 1080P video out there

Great -- I had read some stuff about dropped frames, etc. but evidently that was due to some "dynamic contrast" feature and/or slow RAM.. As long as I can listen to some high-quality music, watch blu-rays and Netflix, I'm good to go.

This looks encouraging, too: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ar...inux&num=1

i wouldnt worry at all about AMD Llano,,,

but for around the same price,
u can grab this too

AMD

[cpu] Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz AM3 125W ($115 + $0)
[mobo] GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P AM3+ μATX ($65 + $0)
[gpu] EVGA GT210 512MB DDR3 32-bit Fanless Low Profile ($35 + $0)
[case] SILVERSTONE ML03B μATX ($60 + $0)
[psu] Antec EarthWatts 380W ATX12V ($40 + $0)
TOTAL: ($315)

And you'd consider that a smarter investment for what I intend to do? I'm guessing the discrete GPU would be more powerful for 3D, etc..


Edit: Where's the RAM in your sample configurations? I'm guessing 1866 is what I should aim for, or should I focus more on timings?

oh, those are barebone builds,,,
u still need to buy RAM and Hard Drive...

eskro Wrote:what components are recommended?
that's all talked in my HTPC guide...

AMD Llano seems a good APU...
it combines a quad-core + HD6530 video....
it'll play any full hd 1080P video out there
as well as 1080P Netflix & Hulu of course...
you can cook a ince build with it for $300
AMD

[cpu+gpu] Llano A6-3650 Quad-Core 2.6GHz FM1 100W ($120 + $0)
[mobo] ASRock A75M FM1 μATX ($80 + $5)
[case] SILVERSTONE ML03B μATX ($60 + $0)
[psu] Antec EarthWatts 380W ATX12V ($40 + $0)
TOTAL: ($305)

i doubt it'll do native 3D playback tho,,,

Yeah but it won't work with XBMC. Try to find another media player, I've got a new build a8-3850 asus f1a75-m pro setup. After 4 days, a gpu install, and a BIOS upgrade, and I've just RMA'd this POS to my vendor. The PSU [silverstone strider plus 500W bronze] shutdown the PC with my GPU in a slot, and doing a BIOS upgrade from the ASUS EZ flash util, corrupted some eeprom and can't get it to boot , so it's gone back, and you know, I wish it was for good. I may try to sell this POS when it gets back and move to intel and fuck AMD/ASUS

ozone Wrote:Yeah but it won't work with XBMC. Try to find another media player, I've got a new build a8-3850 asus f1a75-m pro setup. After 4 days, a gpu install, and a BIOS upgrade, and I've just RMA'd this POS to my vendor. The PSU [silverstone strider plus 500W bronze] shutdown the PC with my GPU in a slot, and doing a BIOS upgrade from the ASUS EZ flash util, corrupted some eeprom and can't get it to boot , so it's gone back, and you know, I wish it was for good. I may try to sell this POS when it gets back and move to intel and fuck AMD/ASUS

Yikes. So you think the problem is with the motherboard or the APU?

this one might be your best choice:

1. ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
2. AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz
3. SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum / Steel Lascala Series LC13B-E ATX
4. Antec EarthWatts Green EA-430D
5. SAPPHIRE 100324L Radeon HD 6570 2GB or
PNY VCGGT4301XPB GeForce GT 430
6. Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066
7. LG Black 10X BD-ROM
8. HP OEM Windows 7 Vista XP Media Center Remote Control

AMD

[cpu] Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz AM3 125W ($115 + $0)
[mobo] GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P AM3+ μATX ($65 + $0)
[gpu] EVGA GT210 512MB DDR3 32-bit Fanless Low Profile ($35 + $0)
[case] SILVERSTONE ML03B μATX ($60 + $0)
[psu] Antec EarthWatts 430W ATX12V ($44 + $0)
TOTAL: ($319)

Torovoltos Wrote:Yikes. So you think the problem is with the motherboard or the APU?

Well you know, it's brand new mobo and a brand new apu. They both work fine...........as long as you don't use XBMC on it. I tried playing a 45GB+ .m2ts files on it, and XBMC just stopped the movie 3 minutes into the film, but I could exit XBMC normally. I put my other GPU in one of the slots to see how that would work with a discrete gpu card, an ATI HD4870, and tried the movie, after 6 minutes, the PC shut down. The PSU is a Silverstone [Seasonic] 500W Bronze model, which is able to handle the GPU requirements, but it didn't. Mind you, when not using XBMC, and with my GPU in it, with no load, the PC hummed along fine...........as soon as I used XBMC, it crapped out. All my drivers for the build and for the GPU I put in, were all up to date, so I decided to update the BIOS. Downloaded the .ROM file and used the Asus EZ flash utility to flash it. I had the file on a thumb drive and the utility "saw" it. It copied over the file and the PC rebooted, and skipped the Asus splash screen altogether, a few times and went to a blue screen. I pulled one of the jumpers and the battery and the power cord for a minute or 2 and tried again. All it did was skip the splash screen, and blue screened, no message, no errors, nothing. So I blame Asus on the BIOS, it's their shit mobo, or shit file, or both, so I RMA'd the whole deal yesterday to the vendor [free both ways fortunately].
Now the Fusion E350 APU is a different story. I hear people raving about it, and use XBMC to stream their media without problems, so I don't know WTF is going on and I don't care. I already put way too much time into troubleshooting and way too much $$ into the build. These reviewers who are praising/comparing this to the Sandy Bridge, don't know SHIT, they use it for 30 minutes and are off to another review...or at least they never tried to stream with XBMC, and if they did, they'd certainly see the problem or they're streaming some shit 700MB .avi file, which will work on anything. I spent a week just on configuring XBMC, going through the hoops to get this POS working. I'll try something else when they send my POS back. So ya, well find out for yourself if you can use it with XBMC, cuz I sure the hell can't. Even Asus doesn't give much support. I've mentioned the BIOS problem in an email to tech support last week. Maybe I'll get a reply in a couple of years, since they don't give a shit what happens after it leaves their dock, it's gone, it's payed for, so they don't care. So screw them, I'll buy something else. They're not the only ones on the block!

I'm not sure why everyone is having so much problems with AMD E350M1 mobo. I'm enjoying it in my home theater room. It can playback all my bd m2ts/iso/mkv/bd-rom with dts-hd/trued and streaming HD Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, Youtube, etc on my 56" HDTV flawless. I'm using it on both 7MCE and XBMC with superb quality playback. As far as playback HD video and audio, it can the same thing as the more powerful HTPC below. Here are my hardwares:
1. APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX
2. ASRock E350M1/USB3
3. Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV125-S2/30GB
4. Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500)
5. SilenX IXP-74-09 120mm Case Fan
6. HP MCE Remote Control
7. LG Black 10X BD-ROM
8. Buffalo Technology MiniStation Stealth 1 TB USB 3.0

If I want to make it beefier, I can always install this card in it- SAPPHIRE 100324L Radeon HD 6570 2GB


And I have another computer with very similar spec to this, but it is in a different case.
1. SILVERSTONE Sugo SG05-B or APEX MI-008
2. Zotac GeForce 9300
3. Silenx IXP7409 iXtrema Pro Fan
4. LG Black 12X BD-ROM
5. HP OEM Windows 7 Vista XP Media Center MCE PC Remote Control
6. SAPPHIRE 100324L Radeon HD 6570 2GB or
PNY VCGGT4301XPB GeForce GT 430
7. Intel Core2 Duo E7500 Wolfdale 2.93GHz
8. G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2
9. Corsair Force CSSD-F40GB2-A 2.5" 40GB

If you take another read of the thread I was talking about the AMD Llano A8-3850 and the ASUS F1A75-M Pro. mobo.

ozone Wrote:If you take another read of the thread I was talking about the AMD Llano A8-3850 and the ASUS F1A75-M Pro. mobo.

ASUS F1A75-V PRO and AMD A8-3850 Llano are more powerful than AMD E350M1. since my less powerful e350m1 can playback anything on xbmc, the more powerful liano shouldn't have any problem playback 1080p using xbmc.

I got the GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P mobo.... its perfect.