As we're using PlayOn more now and I currently have it running on my gaming rig as it's a fast quad-core I decide to upgrade the HTPC in our living room from a older AMD dual-core to a new quad-core to run PlayOn on that as that's the TV setup (42" plasma) we use most of the time.
So I decide to go with AMD's APU solution. Have a A8 3850 APU (combined CPU & GPU [graphics processing unit]=APU), Biostar A75MH motherboard, 8Gb of DDR3-1600 memory and a 64Gb Samsung 830 SSD coming.
My other reason besides wanting more processing power to run PlayOn was also to make the HTPC more "green". Currently it has an Athlon II X2 dual-core, a PCI Gb network card, a HD6850 video card and a 500Gb SATA HDD. Originally I put the 6850 in it cause I thought I might game on the big screen but I rarely do. So by going with the APU, the new mobo has Gb LAN built-in and replacing the 500Gb HDD with the SSD (all our media is on our NAS drive on the network so all I need is the OS and a few programs on the SSD) it should drop the power consumption a bit. The integrated "video card" in this A8 is what AMD refers to as a HD6550 and can use up to 2Gb of system memory and can handle HD video just fine, in fact can run most games decently.
I'll post a update after I get it installed next week.
Sam
So I decide to go with AMD's APU solution. Have a A8 3850 APU (combined CPU & GPU [graphics processing unit]=APU), Biostar A75MH motherboard, 8Gb of DDR3-1600 memory and a 64Gb Samsung 830 SSD coming.
My other reason besides wanting more processing power to run PlayOn was also to make the HTPC more "green". Currently it has an Athlon II X2 dual-core, a PCI Gb network card, a HD6850 video card and a 500Gb SATA HDD. Originally I put the 6850 in it cause I thought I might game on the big screen but I rarely do. So by going with the APU, the new mobo has Gb LAN built-in and replacing the 500Gb HDD with the SSD (all our media is on our NAS drive on the network so all I need is the OS and a few programs on the SSD) it should drop the power consumption a bit. The integrated "video card" in this A8 is what AMD refers to as a HD6550 and can use up to 2Gb of system memory and can handle HD video just fine, in fact can run most games decently.
I'll post a update after I get it installed next week.
Sam