SPCR

Hi,

I have a bit of dilemma, I am looking at a new htpc and I have found that both the A6-5400k and i3-3220 come out at the same costs as each other! This is due to the m-itx motherboards being so expensive for the AMD route.

I watch 1080p 10bit h264 which requires cpu so am I correct thinking the Intel route for me due to the extra cpu grunt? Also I won't be doing any gaming on it except for emulator based stuff, which I think is also cpu only?

The amount of heat either one gives off is very important to me too so that has to be a consideration there. So any opinions are welcome!

Are you planning on using a discrete GPU, or just the onboard graphics? I ask because generally, AMD's graphics have better driver support, which may matter for certain HTPC applications. If you're going to use a discrete GPU, this point is moot.

CPU horsepower shouldn't matter too much, though the i3 is a much more power efficient chip.

For what its worth i'd opt for the i3-3225 as it has the HD 4000 graphics and is typically only an additional £10 in the UK. My uinderstanding is that the I3 will give off less heat than the AMD in virtually every scenario but stand to be corrected on this. I'm contemplating a similar build at the moment - what motherboards are you considering?

Will be using onboard gpu with Windows 7. A lot of what I watch though is 10bit which instantly means software decoding.

monkeyesque,

Spot on the pricing there, the motherboards are so expensive for the AMD's! I am trying to get away with doing a fanless (Thermalright HR-02, only using fan when under hard use only) so less heat the better! I hadn't decided on a motherboard yet but it will be m-itx and I really want voltage control too.

I have at least found out the MSI H61I-E35 does not allow undervolting. I did have a thought, the i3-3220T is identical prices to the i3-3220 so I could always go that way so I don't have to worry about undervolting.

you want at least the a6-5400k or i3-3225 with hd4000 for emulation with dolphin or pcsx2, for older games though it won't matter.
the a6 may require overclocking for decent emulation performance.
the intel hd4000 is a bit hit and miss in terms of emulation performance.

10 bit should not be a problem. I'm pretty sure the decoder is multithreaded.

I hit about 40% usage on a Q8200 which is one of the slower quad cores around. You should be fine.

I would probably go with Trinity if I had to rebuild my HTPC. Mine is using 4-year old parts.

porkchop, I should have been more specific on my emulation requirements, I am only after SNES level stuff. :p

fuzzymath10, That is good to hear with the Q8200. Was something I was worrying a bit about, sounds like I was over reacting on that!

I've got as far as looking at the Asus P8H61-I as a possible M/B as hopeful the Asus fan control will be reasonable. Not sure on voltage options though. Be interested to hear what you go for in the end MB and CPU wise.

For me the important thing is the fans being software controllable as I always use speedfan for controlling it. This is due to being able to specify the temperatures to start reacting and by how much. I will update this thread as I decide, but I am still swinging towards the i3-3220t.

intel easily wins if you don't need the amd gpu and for some reason the system works out to be similar in price. perhaps even consider a sandy bridge celeron, they're not much slower than an i3 in most tasks and are even cheaper.

the only other possible problem is the infamous 24p playback thing, though i think it won't matter to your average movie watcher.

the h61 being an older chip now i think it's safe to assume that speedfan supports it.
as for bios fan control i find that downloading the manuals and checking the bios settings will tell you what sort of options to expect, it's important to me since i don't want to run extra software. for example the gigabyte board i want has normal(auto), off(full speed), silent and pwm slope options, whereas the asrock i had my other eye on only had auto and off(full speed) options.

saitrix wrote:Hi,

I have a bit of dilemma, I am looking at a new htpc and I have found that both the A6-5400k and i3-3220 come out at the same costs as each other! This is due to the m-itx motherboards being so expensive for the AMD route.

I watch 1080p 10bit h264 which requires cpu so am I correct thinking the Intel route for me due to the extra cpu grunt? Also I won't be doing any gaming on it except for emulator based stuff, which I think is also cpu only?

The amount of heat either one gives off is very important to me too so that has to be a consideration there. So any opinions are welcome!

The A75 based mini-ITX motherboards are around £70:

http://www.morecomputers.com/productrev ... ogle1&ta=0

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... g&pup_c=gs

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-fm2- ... e+shopping

The last one has Wifi and Bluetooth built in too. The A75 motherboards are closer to the H77 motherboards in specifications and cost less too.

The H61 ones are around £45 to £55 and are very basic motherboards. The Core i3 3220 is still around £85 to £95 and the A6-5400K is around £50. If using one thread the A6 5400K is probably around Pentium G620 or G630 performance(you can look at the separate reviews on TH). You are still looking at £10 to £20 more for the Intel setup,ie,at least £130 for the Intel setup and at least £120 for the AMD setup. The A4 5300 has also dropped in price to around £35 to £40,which means you can get close to £100. The 65W TDP A8-5500 is around £75 to £80 too.