The mobo specs state DDR3-1066 as the highest native speed supported, However I was considering using DDR3-1600 thinking it would be backwards compatible ... thanks for your input ... it is greatly appreciated
Thats for the tip... your rec. combo deal items ...
combined with ...
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($59.99 @ Amazon) Power Supply: Diablotek 350W ATX Power Supply ($13.99 @ Amazon) Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg) Total: $170.96 Keeps within budget requirements and has at least equil performance specs ... thanks for your advice
I decided to take your advice and settled on these parts for HTPC on a $300 budget ... If I had a bigger budget I would have opted for a better psu & added a 3GB HDD ... but it is what it is .... thanks again
l talked client into spending more $$$ on better PSU and more internal storage ... Thermaltake 430 watt,120mm fan dual rail & 2 x 2TB Seagate baracudas. I am very impressed with system performance ... keeping in mind that the client will never play any game more intensive than Tiger Woods Golf. I thought the SSD chassis could have been bettter machined. System came in @ just under $470. I tried to talk him into blueray player ... but he could not afford now. All in all a very good media center/PC.
I just built this HTPC box last week, using Linux as the OS, have it running the 0602 bios. Case is nice and has room to fit a TV tuner like the Happauge WinTV-HVR-2250 ad a Intel 7260HMWDTX1 Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 PCIe plus Bluetooth 4.0 AC1200 Wireless adapter. The case is designed to fit 1x each 2.5" SSD, 3.5" HDD and a 5.25: optical drive, the front panel external 3.5" is only there to mount something like a multicard reader, the intake fan is recessed behind that which prevents it's use as another drive bay.
The down side is that the front USB cable is a tight fit that WILL block access to the 16x GPU card slot and the mobo only has 2 SATA ports, so choose your drives wisely.
[email protected] by locking the multi to 21 and upping the baseclock to 105Mhz, this boosted the ram to DDR3 1680, I also took the CAS from 9-9-10-24 to 9-9-9-24. I intended to take the CAS lower, but didn't have time. At these settings it is rock solid on Ubuntu 14.04 64bit and all checked out fine on Memtest86+. I also set the Vram to a 1Gb hard limit, theres already benchmarks showing that this is the sweetspot for the games that this APU's GPU is capable of handling, setting it lower or to auto results in lower performance and there is no gain at all to set it higher.
To go past 105 base clock the SATA to IDE mode, which Linux doesn't like at all, but I have heard tale of some people on Windows being able to push it further.