New NPVR build - thoughts?

[mattyb]

Hi All,

I'll be travelling to the states soon so thought I'd take advantage of the weak US dollar and upgrade my ancient living room PC and get NPVR installed. See below for my hardware choices so far. Any thoughts?


Qty. Product Description Savings Total Price
1
AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
Item #:N82E16819103921
Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy $99.99
1
OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Item #:N82E16820227737
Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy $164.99
$134.99
1
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 32-bit
Item #:N82E16832116983
Return Policy: Software Standard Return Policy $99.99
1
Open Box: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 ATX AMD Motherboard
Item #:N82E16813131631R
Return Policy: Open Box Refund Only Return Policy $149.99
$134.99
1
LG Black Blu-ray Drive SATA Model UH12LS28 OEM LightScribe Support
Item #:N82E16827136232
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy $69.99
Grand Total: $539.95

[Pob]

Just remember the Phenom II 840 is more like an Athlon - it does not have any L3 cache. The best bang for the buck Phenom is the 955 Black Edition Item#: N82E16819103808.
The only advantage of the 840 (and 850) is they are 95w, so in theory cooler and quieter. However the 840 and 850 come with a small alluminium heatsink and a small fan which can get quite noisy. The 125w Phenoms come with better copper heatpipe heatsinks, so in practice there is not much difference heat and noise wise. For a media center you would probably be better with a different cooler anyway, soemthing like a Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. If you use cool n quiet, both throttle back to 800Mhz so the 955 would still be fine for a media center...

[Pob]

Oh and I would go for Windows 7 64-bit - it's the same price. I have yet to try any 32-bit software that does not run on the 64-bit edition.

[johnsonx42]

lol @ me... I was just about to call b.s. on you Pob for saying that the Phenom II 840 has no L3 cache, but then I decided to look it up just to be sure. Sure enough, while the lower models of Phenom II 800-series do have L3 cache (4MB instead of 6MB as on the 900-series), the new 840 and 850 don't. In fact, there's no difference at all between a Phenom II X4 840 and an Athlon II X4 650, other than the name stamped on the heatspreader. This is just AMD re-badging a lower cpu to satisfy OEM's: a Phenom II 840 looks better in the specs than an Athlon II, and likewise an Athlon II 170u looks better than a Sempron. I guess since they currently have the 840 for the same price as the slightly slower 640, it's a win for us.

Buying today, I'd probably be considering an A6-3650 and appropriate FM1 board over the legacy Phenom II products. But certainly either will work fine.

You should be cautious about ordering an open-box motherboard - NewEgg doesn't promise that it will come with the I/O plate, and you're kinda screwed without it. The one time I ordered an open-box board that's all I got - just the board in a static-bag, bubble wrapped. Fortunately it was a situation where I didn't need the I/O plate.

[hoborg]

I will choose AMD A8-3800 (4 cores) APU. Internal GPU is very good (AMD HD 6550D) , you will be able to play modern games on it. Price is nice a TDP 65W is really good.

+Gigabyte GA-A75M-D2H

[Pob]

I am sure my next upgrade will be to one of the new Bulldozer CPU's, but it's jolly confusing at the mo with Komodo's, Piledrivers, FM1, FM2, and AM3+ so I will wait until Tom's Hardware tells me what to do!

[hoborg]

AMD A8-3800 APU Review.

There is no better choice for HTPC...

[lovemyram4x4]

I'd stay away from any Sanforce SSDs especially ones from OCZ and double that since your buying while visiting another country. Intel and Crucial are much better choices M4s can quite often be found for under $100 if you're looking to save, Intels normally cost a bit more.

[StanO]

Am I missing somthing? Why the SSD for a Home Theater PC? When 2Gb drives are as low at $60-$70 at Fry's, noise? I guess if it's just an extender.

Re: the chip the A6 or A8 would be a good call to me.