jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

Building a media centre pc, and need a processor (socket 775)

I am totally confused now by the naming conventions used by the intel processors what it means ect ect.

I am thinking about using a dual core e8400 and this is cheaper than the e8200. Anyone know why.

Is it a good choice or overkill?

Can anyone recommend a cpu to use?

I will be using a blu ray / hd dvd player in the pc, and will also be using it to watch freesat as well

Cheers

Kevin Greeley

It's all a bit baffling.

I'd probably go for the E7300 - cheaper than the E8400. You don't really need much cpu power for a media centre PC.

These core 2 duos are ridiculously quick - my E8400 spends most of its time between 1% and 4% and rarely goes above 10%.

I built a media pc with a cheap old E4400 and it does everything with ease.

2Gb of ram helps and 7 hard drives hold all the videos and music.

A Hauppauge twin tuner freeview card records TV and XP media centre edition streams to the xbox 360 in the living room.

HTH, Kevin.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Basically intel's CPU number is pretty easy to follow at the moment for 775 socket CPUs

e for dual, and q for quad. so, exxxx for dual core (i.e e6600, e8400 etc), qxxxx (i.e q9300) for quad.

The higher the number, the better the CPU. Simple.

e8400 is a better CPU than an e8200. Prices are probably down to stock/demand.

As far as choice, yes its fine, could be overkill. But then a year down the line it won't be

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

Cheers guys, I would rather overspec as I will be using it in the lounge to view hd tv as well so need something beefy (my existing desktop can handle the hd and it is only a pentium d running at stock although I can overclock it by over 1ghz extra )

I was gonna use my existing setup and transfer it to a media case as I have an older desktop lying round that would do for general web browsing etc. but unfortunately although it was a good motherboard abit aw8d it is limited in connectivity so going the whole hog

ScoTTyB

get an e8400 or q6600, don't bother with anything else, no point at the prices they are at.

I'd opt for the quad personally.

staffs Mike

Personally I think the E8400 is a waste of money as the E5200 will do the job without any fuss. It's a 45nm chip like the E8*00's but its £60. 2.5Ghz is more than enough for any 1080p playback as its the graphics which bears the brunt of that. If you want to overclock it, it will go to 3.0GHz without any voltage bumps.

Q6600 is the next worthwhile chip imo.

If you haven't already got the intel parts though AMD are far better for media setups as the 780G motherboards have more than capable integrated graphics.. it's what runs mine

Their X2 chips like the 5050e and 4850e are cheap and low power too

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

Cheers Mike, was thinking about amd as I used to be an amd fanboy but thought bang for buck intel is the best bet.

What mobo do you have then, I need one that has hdmi output / or dvi if I can get a sync to my tv and must have optical out to connect to my amp etc. The brief look at amd boards I couldnt see any that had both whereas I have found a gigabyte intel board for about £40 with both and with nvidia 7100 on board which I believe is okay for hd

staffs Mike

I have this which has DVI and Displayport
Asus M3A78-CM, AMD 780V, S AM2+, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR2 1066/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, uATX - Scan.co.uk
Lovely board and it can take any CPU you throw at it.. 140W Phenoms included (although they don't sell any of those anymore lol)

But here is a DVI/HDMI 780G
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, AMD 780G, S AM2+, PCI-E 2.0, DDR2 1066MHz, SATA II, SATA RAID, HDMI1.3, µATX - Scan.co.uk

Got mine for £47 off ebuyer though

Antyhing that is a 780G, 790GX, 740G or 690G will run blu ray no problem (especially with a dual core to lean on in the case of the last two). They range from about £35 for 690G (i have an Asus M2A-VM in my gf's pc which is nice) to about £75 for the gigabyte top end stuff.

Since I bought a 680i from nvidia I try to avoid them like the plague but apparently that board can handle HD stuff.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

cheers Mike will check them out, im an impatient kind of guy so will be going out for the bits today

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

first board doesnt have optical out

second one ticks the boxes though will see if my local places have it in, funnily I live about 2 mins from scan however I work about 40 miles away from there