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Help me build my new Home Theater PC

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mahesh2k:
Josh

Intel CPU is fine if you're not going to be in gaming seriously, if going for gaming then i think AMD is better option. What about Graphics Card? You've any option in mind?

Josh:
The graphics card I have in mind is integrated into the motherboard, hence my choice in that model. This is why I am wondering if Intel is being recommended for any compelling reasons. If so, I will consider a switch, if not, the HD 3300 built in board by GigaByte will be what I go with.

f0dder:
Haven't checked RAM prices for a while, but I see your point - I went for 8gig for my workstation even though 4gig would've been quite adequate.

I say intel CPU simply because they have the best performance. AMDs might have better performance/price ratio (haven't checked up on prices lately), but the intels perform better - especially on things like SSE instructions, which video codecs tend to use. Also, last time I checked, intel CPUs didn't lead just wrt. performance, but also had lower power consumption than the AMD offerings.

Also, I prefer intel chipset on the motherboard, for stability reasons. I've had troubles in the past with other brands. Situation is probably better nowadays, but once burned twice shy.

Haven't looked into getting codec acceleration from graphics cards, but afaik both intel and AMD/ATI integrated solutions offer HD acceleration now. Probably worth looking into, even if you go for a quadcore CPU; at least last time I checked, H.264 encoding was pretty expensive CPU-wise, and even with optimized codecs like CoreAVC, decoding full-HD took it's toll as well.

Josh:
Do you know of an intel motherboard which has a decent video card incorporated into it for HD Decoding and encoding?

f0dder:
Do you know of an intel motherboard which has a decent video card incorporated into it for HD Decoding and encoding?
-Josh (November 03, 2008, 08:44 AM)
--- End quote ---
Haven't researched video acceleration, so I'm afraid I can't really comment on it. Just keep in mind that "intel chipset" doesn't necessarily mean the board has to be from intel, just that it has intel chipset. Oh, the GMA X4500HD in my laptop seems pretty capable (though probably less beefy than some of the nvidia and AMD/ATI integrated GPUs, but it does handle HalfLife2 in 1280x800@full detail smoothly), and is supposed to do HD decode - just haven't had an opportunity to test it. There's probably some AnandTech or TomsHardware article about it, though?

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