HTPC build for next gen video formats!!

[ajaidevsingh]

Ok i just got a i5 750 and a asus cheapest P55 mobo. The mobo turned out to be defective so i had to RMA it, the new board will come around 15th of next month but a month long wait is too long. Now i have the following options:-

1.Get a i7 920+ x58 based system for gaming and keep the i5 750 + Asus cheap P55 for HTPC, etc.

2.Get a i7 920+ x58 based system for gaming and return the i5 750 for hard cash and get a Athlon x4 620/630 + Asus 785 Evo "Its almost half the price of the i5 750".

3.Get a good P55 mobo and use the i5 750 for games and buy a Athlon X4 620/630 for HTPC purposes.

The thing here is were it gets very complicated, the i5 750 is not a good performer in CF. The P55 high end mobo's costs too much even more than a excellent x58 mobo and the 1156 is suppose to be superseded by the 1155 in less than a years time. i7 920 + x58 would last at least 2-3 years, i9 is suppose to be 1366 and i do think that i9 will fight with sandy bridge main stream part quite well.

I have encountered several formats that are not supported by GPU acceleration. So a x2 is a must be it Intel or AMD but in the near future i think this fact will change all ready h.264 at high bit rate eats quite a bit of q6600 in playback. The i5 750/ Athlon 2 X4 620/630 seem very good choices for HTPC's "Under-volt 620/630 is a must" also the low power consumption figs help a lot.

 

[zsdersw]

Video formats and HTPC applications don't grow or change at a rapid enough pace to warrant shoehorning mid- or high-end class hardware into an HTPC case.

Get hardware that's "good enough" for now. By the time your video/HTPC needs have changed enough to warrant new hardware, even what's high-end now won't be sufficient.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I don't know about play-back for watching movies but in Premire Pro CS4 3.6Ghz with a quad will run native AVCHD (.MTS) files smoothly on high quality. There is an app called "Splash" http://mirillis.com/index.html that can play .MTS files on your computer. If you want to encode or transcode you'll need a good overclocking quad.