[wil.fortune]

4 is really fine for an HTPC, with or without an SSD. At 4GB an HTPC isn't going to need to be gnawing on a page file. More RAM is just going to sit there and look cute

I'm building a new htpc this weekend. I've long just left my desktop connected to my TV by a ridiculously long hdmi cable, but it's a beefy monster that eats too much power. Was seriously looking into the aTV thing, but I'm too impatient to wait for a (potential) aTV3 jailbreak and too cheap to pay a premium for the aTV2 - The whole appeal of the aTV with XMBC is that it's really cheap. Take away the cheap, and you're left with underpowered and limited. Meh.

I've looked at that very E-350 ASRock E-350 ASRock board, but I'm concerned about the E-350's ability to handle 1080p playback. I'm waffling between that and eskrow recommended ASRock A75 mITX FM1 and an A6 3500. The A6-3500 build costs about $50 more, and draws twice the power (though still very little overall), but offers enormously more processing power and future-proofing with USB3, support for much faster RAM, etc. Augh, decisions!

RAM, though? At least you can save a lot of money effectively with these little buggers: Pareema 2x2GB DDR3-1333. Never heard of Pareema before, but it got great reviews, and is just $20.

What actually drew me to this thread, was the whole aTV3 concept. I would love to be able to throw a hundred bucks at a simple way to stream HD content to TV's around the house. Maybe by the time I'm actually sitting down to make the purchases, they'll have it figured out.

Check this out though:
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.p...&t=1157209

It discusses the E-350. From what I've read, there shouldn't be any problems expected with that APU when playing 1080p content (so long as you enable hardware acceleration). That was another reason I wanted to get more RAM. APU's are a relatively new concept to me, but from what I understand, they must share the system memory with the CPU, so that's why I felt nervous about going with just 4GB of ram. I hadn't enabled hardware acceleration on a PC with a quad-core processor and an HD 5470, and some of the BBC Life content I'd play would stutter (before enabling HWA). Better safe than sorry, right? RAM is dirt cheap right now anyway, so its kind of a shrug of the shoulders situation IMO

[No12]

I have one E350 and it plays 1080p content without any problem.

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[lisalover1]

I've decided to splurge and build an HTPC. I have a spare copy of Windows 7, so I have the software covered. Here are what I have decided for my motherboard and hard drive, and I was just curious if I could fit both a 2.5" SSD and 3.5" HDD into this motherboard:

Mobo: http://www.amazon.com/Socket-AMD-A8-3850...B005UFD6Z6
HDD: http://www.discountsandmore.net/2-5tb-sata-6-gb-s-3-5/
SSD: http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/mydigit...-inch-ssd/

Looking over all of this, it seems like the minimum cost I could get away with for a respectable HTPC is $600. Does that sound right?

That SSD probably won't work with most of the motherboards out there currently without an added cable or card. Also, the read/write speeds are atrocious.

Check this out, it'll only cost you about $300:

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6811204035 - $49.99
MOBO/APU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813157228 - $94.00
SSD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820226247 - $74.00
PWS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6817339029 - $39.99
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820231308 - $39.99
DVD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6827135204 - $19.99

Now, if you have to have an HDD (I prefer all my media being stored on a server), they have a 3TB external on Amazon right now that you can pop open and use as an internal:
HDD: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeAgent-...066&sr=1-1 - $149.99

I'm going to be building this HTPC within the next month or so... very excited!

That seems like a great build for an HTPC. Nice and cheap, too! I might swap out that expensive SSD for a smaller one, or remove it altogether, but if you don't mind, I would like to hear your opinions on it when you get it all set up.