[Rossmac]

Hi there,

I've spotted this system for sale on a local forum I visit - the guy is looking £260 for it as it stands and it is built so I wouldn't need to do much else.

My question is, how well shall this run XBMC? If I buy a Blu-Ray drive and throw it in, will it be able to play it fine? I realise that the max output of the mobo is 1080i, will this be enough when connected to my 1080p Panasonic 37" G10?

Would I be better to make my own and benefit from an ION graphics card and less processing power? Please respond with thoughts - my budget would be £350-400.

Case -
Antec Fusion Micro 350 remote. including 350watt PSU - As new condition, i built the pc and it was used 3 times and has sat under my telly since then

Motherboard
ABIT Fatal1ty F-I90HD
Technical Details
LGA775
ATI RX1250, ATI RX700
FSB1066, HDMI 1080i, PCI-E x 16
Dual DDR2-800, GbE, SATA 3G, RAID
7.1 CH HD Audio, RoHS Compliant

CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 + stock cooler

Ram
2x 2GB OCZ Gold Edition DDR2 PC6400 C5 duel channel

Hard-drive
500GB Western Digital

TV Card
Compro Videomate E700 Duel TV Card with Remote


Belkin Cheap Wifi card is included been working fine

Let me know what you think!

Thanks,
Ross.

[poofyhairguy]

You never mentioned it specifically, but I assume this is a Windows 7 build. You mentioned you need to play Blu Rays (rather than Blu Ray rips) so that pretty much means Windows. I personally just stick with Blu Ray rips since XBMC does not have native Blu Ray support.

My only worry would be the motherboard. I personally HATE ABIT fatality boards (never seen such crap NSB heatsinks for supposedly high end parts), I would personally much prefer a Gigabyte or Asus board any day. Also this board has a very weak GPU for hardware acceleration- the CPU will have to do the decoding which hopefully it could handle but that means more heat. The reviews of that board on the internet are terrible, I would steer clear.

One of these with a cheap GPU would be great:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product

Just note though- XBMC Live (aka Linux) will work like crap with all those ATI parts. The reason for going the ION route is not because Nvidia is much better than ATI for HD acceleration, it is because Nvidia's acceleration works with Linux and ATi's doesn't (well it kinda does but honestly it is crap compared to VDPAU).

I will say that if you get that system also get a cheap Geforce 210 card and you will have an HDMI out, can play the meanest Blu Rays on the planet on the GPU and you will be able to go the Linux route in the future if you want.

[Rossmac]

Hey thanks for the response first off.

Yes, this will have Windows 7 Professional 64bit on it.
The reason why I play Blu Ray instead of rips is because I don't download any! The only thing I have is x264 rips which weigh in around the 2-4gb. I've used my PS3 for the past year as a standalone Blu Ray player and I am pretty much just looking to concatenate my old Xbox 1 and PS3 into a HTPC and do away with both of them under my TV.

Now, having read reviews online about the motherboard, I can see it is quite bad. I run Gigabyte in my main rig with a Phenom II and it's a great setup so I'd probably look to go again with them.

All of my media is on a network storage device and is coupled to the system using Powerline.

Am I right in going for this and adding a Gigabyte motherboard in as well as the NVIDIA graphics card you have suggested or should I just start from scratch and build up my own Blu-Ray system (bearing in mind budget....)?

I appreciate your experienced insight