Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Looking into HTPC...general question.

I'll let Ken handle the AMD vs. intel thing since I'm not up the latest details there.

In cores vs clock speed, additional cores will only be of use to software that is designed to take advantage of it. Some tasks are better parallelized (i.e. split into chunks that can be run simultaneously on mulitple cores) than others.

Since computing power has been moving, in earnest, in a multi-core direction for about 3 years (on the consumer end of things, anyway), more an more developers are (or should be) taking this into account when they write their software.

Ideally, you should know if the software you'll be running is written to take advantage of multi-cores before you make the call on which chip to get. Since we live in the real world, I'd say put a slightly higher priority on the clock speed at this point.

Thank you, gentlemen. That is helpful.

As a further note, I have a Core 2 Quad Q9400 (2.66GHz). I'll never go back... It's very, very quick at normal operations.

I have one Core 2 duo E6725(?)and one system running an AMD dual core of equivalent specs. The AMD system just seems to be faster than the Intel box, it boots up about 5 seconds faster and everything else just feels quicker, could just be me.

Well, we really don't do gaming, so based on Peter's comment, I'm questioning the value of quad-cores. They also seem to demand quite a bit more power, and we typically just leave everything on. I'm trying to find a way to be "happy" with less than a E8400 (which I have in another machine, and am happy with).

If you don't mess with the BIOS, I think generally all of the modern quads power down cores. I know the Core i7s do, and I'm pretty sure the Phenom IIs do, but I'm not certain about the Core 2 Quads.

I'm running my HTPC with a E6300(?) dual core and it runs fine playing 1080p content, bluray/hddvd rom drive plays HD content fine as well. As long as you're not re encoding videos or other intensive tasks while you're trying to play your movie you should be good to go... also running with a ATI 3870 graphics card. don't forget the CPU is important but you need to factor in a good video & sound card too!... having said that Quad core would likely make you more future proof when they come out with 5090p & super duper quad HDDDD DTS sound...

This potential build for Mrs. Tuttle needs to accommodate only these types of tasks:

1. XP for now, W7 later probably.
2. Webstuff
3. MS Office
4. Video streaming (Netflix, Hulu, possibly Directv2pc)

I still have some angst over the processor. Obviously, I'm trying to do this cheap (like ~$300-350 TOTAL). Build looks like this so far, but obviously I'll have to get a different mobo if I choose an Intel processor.

I want to re-use perfectly nice and legal hard disks, OS, and Antec ATX power supply that I already have.
Silverstone SFF mATX case $70
Radeon HD 4670 HDMI GDDR4 Video card $77
GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-US2H AM2+/AM2 780G HDMI Micro ATX Motherboard $80
4GB A-Data DDR2 800 memory ~$45

Processor candidates:

Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core $60
Athlon X2 7850 Kuma 2.8GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core $70
Intel Pentium E5300 2.6GHz 65W Dual-Core Processor $80

I care about power consumption. I don't really want to step up to the $120 processors and above.

Thoughts?

4 GB is overkill if you're just using Windows XP. To save some cash I would recommend going to 2 GB, or spending around the same amount on better quality RAM.

Good advice, Cam! Thank you!