$300 budget for CPU/Motherboard -- used for HTPC duties.

[Shyatic]

File sharing, transcoding movies, and ripping (Handbrake) are primarily what I am planning on doing. I have a Xeon W3530 box but it's in a Dell case and doesn't have USB3, and lacks upgrade options for video cards as well as my Ceton capture card.

So what are my options folks? As I said -- it's a file server and HTPC, there is zero gaming involved on it and it's a "headless" setup, where I have it in a closet and my Xbox/Roku stream the content from the box.

Thanks for any advice. Am happy to go AMD if I can reuse my RAM

Edit: Do not plan on overclocking, as I've never done it in the past... but I am open to learning about it. I just like stability

 

[Arkaign]

A 1366 mobo + USB 3.0 card would be an easy way to do it with your existing CPU, combo that with selling the dell case/mobo, and you have a cheap option there.

Otherwise, cheapest i5 would be a worthy look for you.

 

[Shyatic]

I should add, I have a new case, power supply, and hard drive for a new mobo/CPU combo. I am going to sell the Dell as I can't stand the hideous case sitting in my closet (yes, but you have to see the server rack... just doesn't fit in )

Edit: do you mean Haswell i5, or something else? A link would be very helpful!

Also, I currently run a SB i5 as my main gaming PC... if I could upgrade to something better than that for around $300, then I'd take my gaming PC and donate it to the HTPC build instead.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The question is how much work do you need done. I assume none of it as such is realtime demanding. In that case even a Celeron could do.

 

[Hubb1e]

For those reading this, an Intel W3530 is a quad core hyperthreaded Bloomfield at 2.8Ghz. http://ark.intel.com/products/41313/Intel-Xeon-Processor-W3530-8M-Cache-2_80-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI

You can get any Haswell i5 quad core with a H81 motherboard for less than $300. The sweet spot right now is probably the i5 4570. If you want less heat there are also good 65W options too. The i5 4570 is also faster than any Sandy i5 at stock frequencies so you could certainly do the swap with your main rig though the Haswell chip is better with power so it would be a better choice to be on 24/7

 

[crashtech]

Not hard to find mobo, CPU, and RAM that will do the job for <$300.

 

[JumBie]

Budget is really high for what you need, but You could get a i5 4670k and mobo at MC for $250.

 

[Shyatic]

Budget is really high for what you need, but You could get a i5 4670k and mobo at MC for $250.

I'm in NJ.... no MC near me

 

[AtenRa]

I would wait for the AMD A8-7600 to be released and pair it with a mini-itx X88 motherboard. Do you really need more performance than that for the HTPC ??

 

[Shyatic]

I would wait for the AMD A8-7600 to be released and pair it with a mini-itx X88 motherboard. Do you really need more performance than that for the HTPC ??

What's the timeline for that?

 

[AtenRa]

Within Q1.

 

[jaydee]

It would be good to know what case/PSU you bought already. The case could impact the motherboard.

 

[crashtech]

He's talking about transcoding and ripping in the OP, an A8 would be a downgrade from the W3530.

I specced an H81/4570 system real quick with 8GB RAM ( I assume the tri-channel ECC in the current rig would not be reusable), but it breaks the budget by about $20.

 

[Shyatic]

It would be good to know what case/PSU you bought already. The case could impact the motherboard.

I have this case (been sitting a while): http://www.antec.com/product.php?id=704912

I have a Corsair 650W PSU, forget the model as it's coming out of my main desktop rig (to be replaced with a SeaSonic).

 

[Shyatic]

He's talking about transcoding and ripping in the OP, an A8 would be a downgrade from the W3530.

I specced an H81/4570 system real quick with 8GB RAM ( I assume the tri-channel ECC in the current rig would not be reusable), but it breaks the budget by about $20.

I'm not hard and fast on the $300 budget, and given that it will be faster than my current desktop rig, I'll likely upgrade MY desktop and swap the components downward into the HTPC.

 

[crashtech]

Well, a gaming build would usually not be built around an H81 mobo, but a Z87 instead, which would make the CPU, mobo, and RAM fall around the $360-400 for midrange gaming components. Maybe you could do your ripping on your main rig and shoot the files over to the HTPC when they are done, this would drastically lower your HTPC requirements... lots of ways to skin a cat.

 

[Shyatic]

Well, a gaming build would usually not be built around an H81 mobo, but a Z87 instead, which would make the CPU, mobo, and RAM fall around the $360-400 for midrange gaming components. Maybe you could do your ripping on your main rig and shoot the files over to the HTPC when they are done, this would drastically lower your HTPC requirements... lots of ways to skin a cat.

Well the Z87 would provide overclocking benefits, and things? Not sure the difference in architecture between that and the H81; I don't generally overclock as it is. From what I've read, the happy medium is the H87.

 

[Shyatic]

How about a 4670K and this MSI board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130697

It's $340 but should be a good step up from my current i5-2500, all while giving me the ability to re-use my RAM... which is DDR3 PC3-12800 from my existing Xeon box.

Let me know if this makes sense, as the price and everything seem very good considering I will sell everything else.

 

[crashtech]

Generally gaming rigs are optimized for performance, and Z87 allows the most control over CPU and RAM parameters. Your OP did state an openness to overclocking, and most of the advice here will steer you in that direction, especially for a gaming rig. Ultimately it's up to you which features you need:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1150#Original_Haswell_chipsets

 

[crashtech]

How about a 4670K and this MSI board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130697

It's $340 but should be a good step up from my current i5-2500, all while giving me the ability to re-use my RAM... which is DDR3 PC3-12800 from my existing Xeon box.

Let me know if this makes sense, as the price and everything seem very good considering I will sell everything else.

The Xeon box doesn't have ECC?

 

[Shyatic]

The Xeon box doesn't have ECC?

It's a Dell Precision Workstation, not a server

 

[Shyatic]

Does H87 allow for virtualization? I do run some VMs from time to time (testing) so it's nice to retain that ability.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

As always, if you have a microcenter a i3 4130 is like $149 with a motherboard.

 

[crashtech]

Does H87 allow for virtualization? I do run some VMs from time to time (testing) so it's nice to retain that ability.

There are some special features like PCI passthrough that need VT-d and therefore Q87 and a non-K i5 or better to work, but if you needed it you would probably already know about it.