I am planning on building a htpc for a about $550. I was looking at a AMD-5800k or a i3 2100. Which is better for the price. I know that if I buy an i3 i may need to buy a graphics card.
With the i3 it performs cpu wise a tiny tiny bit better than the 5800k mind you the 5800k is a tiny bit cheaper but the 5800k blows any intel onboard graphics out of the water, so for 550 I think the 5800k is a better option. plus you can spend that money you just saved not buying a graphics card on hard drives to store all of that totally not X rated "htpc" content ;)
Hope it helped
Unless you need 3d blu-ray serport (that would require a descreat Nvidia card) I would go with an AMD apu & spend the extra on some high speed ram 1866 or higher. You will be serprised the games that will run on the apu alone. An ssd is a must at this point just a small one for your OS + HDD for recordings ect.. After upgrading to faster ram on an AMD APU system I saw a doubeling of fps in games. If you want to go with Intel get one with built in 4000 graphics & that will do most video just fine & some codecs can work better with this. Gameing will suck tho!
3d blu=ray also requires a 3d tv. amd can do polarized 3d just fine. otherwise correct. get teh asrock mobo, it can handle crazy fast ram,.
What about a 35w Core i3 2120T?