Trinity HTPC Christmas Present

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1

Don't see many Home Theatre PC builds around here.  Here's one I'm planning on giving my parents for  Christmas.

Will be used for 1080p TV, Bluray, streaming video, and internet browsing.  I'll probably use it for some light gaming whenever I'm there.

I was aiming at $500, went a bit over that.  I was reading that the Silverlight software behind Netflix can be really taxing on some of the crappy CPUs so I ended up going with a Trinity A10-5800k which is probably overkill.   I went with Trinity over Ivybridge mainly just to keep costs down.

  • $120 --- ASUS F2A85-M PRO
  • $130 --- AMD Trinity A10-5800k 3.8 GHz (4.2 GHz T) 4 Core FM2
  • $61 --- G.Skill Ares 8GB 2133 MHz RAM
  • $55 --- Asus BluRay Drive
  • $105 --- Hauppauge HVR-2250 Dual TV Tuner
  • $70 --- WD Blue 500 GB 7200 RPM Sata III HD
  • Free --- Old 64GB Crucial SSD I have
  • $60 --- hec Black Micro ATX HTPC case /w 300W Power Supply

      Total = $597

Warning to those buying that case, the included Power Supply is garbage.


This should work out fine.  I will likely end up replacing the Power Supply in a few months.  I'd have liked to try the mini ITX form factor, but there are a lack of mini ITX FM2 motherboard options available.

2

so 600 is the budget right, no gaming right?

3

Yeah no real gaming.  I might use it to play Minecraft with my sister when I am there, but it doesn't need to be a great experience, that's what watching a 10 yo fail at placing blocks is for.  Can always put a GPU in it later if I want to (though it would have to be low profile for that case).

I could probably go with one of the other Trinity chips and save $60, but I don't mind spending $600.

 

4

that ODD has more cache, and is 15 bucks cheaper since it has free shipping and promo code lasting for 5 more days, CPU uses less power so that will be easier on the PSU and won't melt on stock cooling and with low airflow, since its z77 you can merge the SSD and the 1TB HDD using smart response, it will make your HDD much faster

you can get about 50FPS with decent setting in minecraft on a HD3000, the HD2500 gets better frame rates than the 3000, I would increase the Bclk to 102 to give the system a all around boost

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/675?vs=677

you can spend $15 more for the 3225 with HD 4000

5

I was going to say that that included power supply doesn't have an 8-pin motherboard power connector, but niether does that motherboard (it has a 4-pin) :D

Thanks for the help, I'll probably end up going with something similar to that.  Poor AMD, I was trying really hard to give them some business.