[meridius]

Hi all

which chip should i go for to run xbmx windows 7 for very very high bitrate blu rays and mkvs the Intel Core i3 2100T or a Intel Core i3 2120 for a HTPC build.

i know one runs at 35w and the other at 65w but is there any difference ?

the price of the Intel Core i3 2100T 2.5ghz is £8 more than the Intel Core i3 2120 3.3ghz asht 2120 is on offer at the moment.

i dont know which to go for as i dont want any droped frames at all would there be much difference in heat and keeping them both cool and quiet.

thanks

[eskro]

any i3 CPU version out there will play even meanest 1080P movies out there...

[meridius]

cheers but which cpu to get ? i want the system as quiet as possable but as you can see one chip is 2.5ghz at 35w and the other at 3.3ghz at 65w and is £10 cheaper

but i want the best form the system but also want it quiet.

i want to know is it worth getting the extra speed or not and is there much heat differences between the chips are you taking about 1c or 10c ?

your talking 800mhz difference in chip speeds

[outatouch0]

I believe these CPU/MB's (when set to do so) throttle down when not in use or when full power is not necessary. If my understanding on this is correct then it seems to me the only difference between the two is the MAX wattage the chip will run at. The idle and low demand wattages should be nearly equal.
Why pay more for a throttled back CPU?
If I am wrong on this I am sure someone will not hesitate to correct me

[Mallet21]

I believe these CPU/MB's (when set to do so) throttle down when not in use or when full power is not necessary. If my understanding on this is correct then it seems to me the only difference between the two is the MAX wattage the chip will run at. The idle and low demand wattages should be nearly equal.
Why pay more for a throttled back CPU?
If I am wrong on this I am sure someone will not hesitate to correct me

+1

Here is a link showing comparisons between i3 2100 (3.1ghz) and the i3 2100T:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1202-page3.html

As you can see, power consumption under HD playback load and at idle are damn near identical. You are looking at the 2120 with a slightly higher clock but I think the benefits of a more robust processor outweigh the savings of 2 or 3 watts.

[meridius]

Cheers all for the help but just thought i would share this

there seems to be very littile difference in the chip and not only that if you underclock the 3.3 to 2.5 the same as the T version it has the same W apart from prime test

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost....count=1473

I can get the 3.3 for £10 cheaper than the T version at the moment and get 800mgz more for backup and if i wanted the same W i can underclock it to be the same as the T chip Apart if i wwant to run prime all day which i dont , lol

[outatouch0]

Cheers all for the help but just thought i would share this

there seems to be very littile difference in the chip and not only that if you underclock the 3.3 to 2.5 the same as the T version it has the same W apart from prime test

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost....count=1473

I can get the 3.3 for £10 cheaper than the T version at the moment and get 800mgz more for backup and if i wanted the same W i can underclock it to be the same as the T chip Apart if i wwant to run prime all day which i dont , lol

I suspected that would be the case

[meridius]

cheers all for the help i bought the 2120 3.3ghz version fr my HTPC build

What motherboard would you go with for a HTPC

the Asus P8H67-M Evo or Asus P8P67-M as there both the same price, the P8H has the display ports but no high quality caps, the PHP does not have display ports but has high quality caps.

I have also bought a GFX card so i can use either board but i was woundering if there would be any reason to go for the higher quality caps ovther the none versions ?

cheers

[uncola]

the first mobo seems more htpc oriented, while the 2nd has more overclocking features. I'd get the 2nd one if you're going to game, otherwise the features of the first one seem better

[accountabc]

any i3 CPU version out there will play even meanest 1080P movies out there...

....Nope. Because dxva is broken for Sandy Bridge in Xbmc atm and Xbmc only uses 1 core for decoding video, Xbmc starts dropping frames on an i3 2100t when bitrate exceeds 25Mb/s.

[meridius]

the first mobo seems more htpc oriented, while the 2nd has more overclocking features. I'd get the 2nd one if you're going to game, otherwise the features of the first one seem better

There both the same price but I don't know which to go for

[eskro]

i'd go for the ASUS P8P67-M PRO

[meridius]

Cheers one more question

Hi all

Can u use both the on board gfx and separate gfx cards hdmi at the same time or would u need to disable the onboard gfx as u would have problems. ?

As I wanted to have one hdmi to the tv and the other to the amp or can u not do this and would need a gfx card with 2 hdmi.

Just woundering why go for the pro motherboard, better build quality than the other board. ?

Cheers

Cheers

[eskro]

like u said, both motherboards are pretty much the same,,,,
the ASUS P8P67-M PRO will let have more RAM options...
thats all ,,,,

the audio and video flows both through the same HDMI port...
you dont need 2 hdmi ports...

usually, when u install a video card,
you can disable the onboard video using the BIOS settings,
i've never encountered problems when leaving it enabled
but i think its a good idea to disable it,,,

[outatouch0]

As I wanted to have one hdmi to the tv and the other to the amp or can u not do this and would need a gfx card with 2 hdmi.

Is there some reason you have to do it this way? Usually better, for a number of reasons, to run HDMI to the AVR (amp) then HDMI to the TV.