Kodi Community Forum

Hi everyone

i am currently looking into computer configurations and i wonder what i should buy... and i found a motherboard that has the following graphic card already built in:

ATI Radeon HD 4250, 128MB DDR3


I wonder if this graphic card, togheter with 4 Gb Ram (Kingston ValueRAM, 4 GB, DDR3-1066, CL7, SODIMM), and a phenom X4, 3.2 Ghz (AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition, 3.2GHz, AM3, 4C/4T) would suffice for playing 1080p with 7.1 surround....

I hoped that you as the hardware experts might be able to tell

Thx for ur feedback!

Hi. Have you got a link or part number for the motherboard? I would feel better answering if I knew how the GPU is integrated.

That CPU is overkill if all you want to do is play videos. Save yourself some money and go for the lower end.

Name of Mainboard: Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3, AMD 880G, AM3, CFX
Chipset: North Bridge: AMD 880G South Bridge: AMD SB850
Graphic: ATI Radeon HD 4250, 128MB DDR3, 1x VGA, 1x DVI-D, 1x HDMI (only DVI OR HDMI at the time)

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=Gi...templete=2

regarding the CPU... i considered taking a Athlon II

AMD Athlon II X2 250 BOX C3 Stepping, 3.0GHz, AM3, 2C/2T

but i heard they consume significantly more energy than phenom x4... plus, with the phenom x4 i would definitely be ready for future developments and i dont have to invest again soon into a new cpu.. that was my logic for opting for phenom x4... and to have a faster computer start up.... feel free to challenge me on that

I'm not familiar with ATI chipsets, you should wait for an expert to come along. But I think you should be able to run XBMC on Windows with that. If you're planning on using Linux or XBMC Live, you need an nVidia GPU. One thing to note is that it doesn't have the latest version of HDMI, so cannot do 3D TV (if you're interested in that).

Challenge accepted.

If power consumption is an issue, why not go for an atom/ION board? That CPU alone has a TDP of 125W at full load, I'm guessing the system you want to built will use close to 100W at idle. An atom/ION board with a single SSD will use no more than 80W under full load.

If all you want to do is play HDTV, future-proofing the CPU is not much of a worry. The main grunt work is now done by the GPU with hardware decoding.

If you want faster boot times, I'd suggest getting a lighter OS, instead of Windows (as you have practically limited yourself to Windows by getting an ATI GPU).

SwissElite Wrote:I wonder if this graphic card would suffice for playing 1080p with 7.1 surround....

Built-in graphic card is ok and will play 1080P videos thanks to hardware acceleration in windows7....

now the audio, the top hd audio formats are DOLBY TRUE-HD and DTS-HD MA....

you wont get that with you current setup....

you need at least an ATI RADEON 5XXX series video card for that....

then, you also need a compatible DOLBY TRUE-HD and DTS-HD MA 7.1 Receiver...

As example --> Sony STR-DH710 7.1 Home Theater Receiver (US $228.50)

so plug your ATI RADEON 5XXX series video card to your Receiver via HDMI
and your good to go.... almost...

you'll still need a set of 7.1 speakers to plug into your Receiver...

taking your advice into consideration.... i am thinking of just buying this system here:

http://www.asrock.com/nettop/overview.as...re%20100HT


would that probably fullfill my needs? (low energy consumption, 1080p, 7.1 audio)....


im sorry if my questions are too easy...

how much were you willing to spend here.... ??

well.... what i want is being able to play 1080p with 7.1 sound. plus, i want all my data to store somewhere, in a save way.

first, i thought i would simply build a computer with 3*2TB in a Raid5, and thought i would spend for that around 700 US.

I really just need to play vids and audio with the, lets call it "Mediacomputer", but i would like this to be a computer which does not consume too mch energy and neither causes too much noise.


So now im at the point where i consider buying the

http://www.asrock.com/nettop/overview.as...re%20100HT

for playing the movies and the audio,

and a Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4
http://www.netgear.com/products/home/sto...U4220.aspx

with 3*2 TB, because in the asrock thing above i cannot attach enough harddisks...

Which then, in total would cost me around 1500 USD... (dammed expensive...)

-------------------

if anyone knows a atom/ion board with
- analog 5.1 sound (at least)
- an internal or external serial port
- USB 3.0
- SATA III

please tell me, cause then i would build the computer by myself, and include the "NAS" there.. which would save me quite a bit of money...

first of all, you'll always save money buy building your own HTPC...
just got over this last night with another user actually,,,
these were the pieces i suggested him to buy for $350....

[cpu] Athlon X2 3.0GHz AM3 65W ($60) http://fwd4.me/u0U
[ram] GeIL 2 x 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 1066 CL7 ($40) http://fwd4.me/u0V
[mobo] MSI AM3 USB2 MicroATX ($60) http://fwd4.me/u0W
[gpu] ASUS GT430 1GB DDR3 128-bit Low Profile ($65) http://fwd4.me/u0b
[ssd] Kingston 2.5" 30GB SATAII ($76) http://fwd4.me/u1u
[case + psu] Sentey SS1-2422 MicroATX 450W ($52) http://fwd4.me/u0Y


and as NAS, use FreeNAS, dont go crazy with Netgear thing,,,, FreeNAS rocks!!

My HTPC runs a 1.8 gHz celeron with 1GB of RAM for reference.

hehe eskro i've seen this configuration before - i actually started building my first suggestion based on that list the only problem is, as im not from the US, most components are different over here in europe, so i have to find other parts....

now... lets halt the whole conversation for the mediapc for a second, and lets discuss bout the FreeNas thing... as i googled it, its an open source nas "gui(?)"... but on what do you install that? on a regular computer? or you buy a specialized nas-device and install it on there?

because here's the question.... what is better: having a dedicted nas with my whole data (including backups from other computers) and a slim computer for playing the media streamt from the NAS - or everything included in one computer?

i have further seen that you suggested a solid state disk, but on S-ATA 2... i would have looked for a S-ATA 3 mainboard, to then attach a SSD for S-ATA 3... wich i think would be much faster...?

ok listen.... everybody has a different story...

if you need to feed multiple PC's with the same data (music, videos, pictures...)

its better to use NAS....

the idea is to have a centralize storage place that any of your PC's can get to...

its better because you dont need lets say the same movies twice because you have 2 PC's your using to watch them...

Now if you only have 1 PC thats gonna watch movies and stuff, not multiple,
you can simply go the "cheap way" and get yourself a good External Hard-Drive....

But you can still go the NAS way here, even if you only have 1PC....

you can go the FREENAS way, or you can buy a NAS Enclosure and put your HDD in there...

so, mainly it is one computer which plays the movies... the other computers only need to be able to access the storage so that they can make a backup of their files. -> if they can access it just as a "network share", this is fine.. so i would then rather build everything into one computer...


so here's my suggestion:

CPU (72$):
AMD Athlon II X2 250 BOX C3 Stepping, 3.0GHz, AM3, 2C/2T

Mainboard (99$):
Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3, AMD 880G, AM3, CFX
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=Gi...templete=2


RAM (50$):
Kingston ValueRAM, 4 GB, DDR3-1066, CL7, SODIMM


Sytem HDD (129$):
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB, 2.5 Zoll, SATA-3
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.a...064mag-1g1


Storage for Raid-5 (3*99$=297$):
3 times Western Digital Caviar Green, 64MB, 2TB, SATA-II

Graphic Card (99$):
ZOTAC GT-430 1GB GDDR3, PCI-E x16, HDMI, DP
http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-geforce-gt...l-391.html


Power Supply (178$):
Enermax MODU-82+ 525 Watt



Total: roughly 924 USD



---- now... will that

1. play 1080p + 7.1 qual
2. be reasonably fast for a network storage
3. reasonably power efficient
4. (could i play 3d movies?)
5. do you think its ok? or something really stupid in there?


again.. thank you so much for your help - much appreciated!

hold on,,,,,
where's your PC case??

hehe good observation... i have it already.