My on-the-cheap Franken-HTPC build, need opinions

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DMarti

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 5, 2002
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Here are some parts I either garbage picked, acquired from family, pulled from my spare parts or purchased online this week cheap :

CASE: COOLER MASTER Elite 360 (39.99 from the egg today)
MOBO: MSI MS-7184 v1.0 (can you say 2005 people?)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ w/Stock HSF (nice & quiet)
RAM: 2GB DDR SDRam PC3200 (System only supports 2GB Max)
Optical: Older OEM HP DVD / CDRW
PSU: ZALMAN ZM500-RS 500 Watts ATX12V (29.99 from the egg today)
HD: OCZ Agility 2 OCZSSD2-2AGTE60G + 2X1GB WD SATA II (99.99 from the egg today)
GPU: MSI GeForce 7900GT

Coupling that with a fresh Windows 7 Install how do you think it will perform to play all my mp3's, DVD rips, play Xvid / x.264 up to 720p quality movies over a DVI / VGA cable to my LCD TV and browse the net? I know the mobo / cpu / ram / vid card combo is ancient but I got it for free and want a HTPC.

I am pretty sure I will be using Windows 7 Media Center to play all my mp3's, DVD rips but kinda would like to use my barely used now Ipod touch (2nd Gen) as a remote. Is anyone using their Ipod / Ipad to control Media Center?

Thanks for the advice in advance.
 
get a newer GPU and it'll be fine. Unfortunately, the 7900 will not do full decode, and the A64 3500+ is nowhere near enough to pick up the slack for h.264. get a 5450 or 5550 if you want to stay on the cheap, a 5450 could be as cheap as 20 bucks after MIR for full decoding ability plus the bonus of being able to bitstream.

Yes I have used my ipod touch (4th Gen) to control WMC. Its ok, but not amazing. I stick to my Harmony One
 
Activate: AMD said:
get a newer GPU and it'll be fine. Unfortunately, the 7900 will not do full decode, and the A64 3500+ is nowhere near enough to pick up the slack for h.264. get a 5450 or 5550 if you want to stay on the cheap, a 5450 could be as cheap as 20 bucks after MIR for full decoding ability plus the bonus of being able to bitstream.

Yes I have used my ipod touch (4th Gen) to control WMC. Its ok, but not amazing. I stick to my Harmony One
Click to expand...

Agreed with everything Activate says, Check out my sig with the same vid card that i run for full 1080P and Blu-Ray's.
 
Thanks guys, I will be on the look out for a HD5450. Is there any particular make of 5450 that is the perfect blend of performance & low noise levels?
 
You can find Fanless HD5450 cards.
I'd suggest moving to a dual core processor. You should be able to find some cheap.
 
Got the vid card in and for some reason no matter what I set the motherboard graphics card at it will not display anything. i tried the vid card on another machine and it works fine. Could my motherboard not support this vidcard? I just tried the DVI & D-Sub outputs, not the HDMI output.
 
Now to think of it, This motherboard is PCIe v1.0 and this card per Sapphire is backwards compatible to 1.0....but perhaps it is not. Could that be my issue?
 
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