[bluray]

This HTPC might be a great gift idea for this coming holiday:

1. Case- Silverstond GD05B
2. MOBO- ASRock A75M FM1 AMD A75
3. APU- AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz
4. HD- Patriot SSD 32GB
5. RAM- G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB
6. BD-ROM-LG Black 12X BD-ROM
7. MCE remote to control and turn on from cold start/off HTPC-ASRock Smart Remote Controller

AMD A8-3850 might be the best all-in-one APU on the market. These tests proved it- AMD A8-3850 APU Review

[WhiteLighter]

HTPC like this is a great gift for parents/grandparents who, like mine, wanted to watch everything on your media server but don't want to learn how to use a computer.

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HTPC like this is a great gift for parents/grandparents who, like mine, wanted to watch everything on your media server but don't want to learn how to use a computer.

no parent/grandparent at my house. just me, my wife and 5 kids in the house. all of us love electronics gadget and home entertainment. htpc's get the most use!

[eskro]

the AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz is a monster APU on a budget!!

[bluray]

the AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz is a monster APU on a budget!!

it's suprised me a little bit on how it beat i3 on almost every playback tested by several sites, and i3 failed to play 3d bluray.

for htpc purposes (especially gaming), i3 with hd300 graphic card is no match for AMD A8-3850 with HD6550D graphic card- Video Perspective: AMD A8-3850 vs Core i3-2105 on Battlefield 3, AMD A8-3850 .

[RichH]

I recently purchased that APU with a Gigabyte GA-A75M-UD2H Motherboard, 8Gb (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX Memory and a OCZ 60GB Agility 3 SSD. I have not got a case yet so using an old ATX case untill I decide what to get.

I am very impressed with the setup and the APU \ motherboard. Far better than I was expecting and on a good budget.

Only very slight downside is the stock APU Fan that comes with the APU does get a to a point you can here it when you work the system. But that will be soon dealt with when I swap it for a silent fan.

[eskro]

it's suprised me a little bit on how it beat i3 on almost every playback tested by several sites, and i3 failed to play 3d bluray.

shocking becuz, its supposed to handle everything!

[eskro]

Only very slight downside is the stock APU Fan that comes with the APU does get a to a point you can here it when you work the system. But that will be soon dealt with when I swap it for a silent fan.

cant you just tone down the CPU fan to about %50 ??
check in your BIOS for that and,
if you cant do it there,
do like me, i got a gigabyte motherboard too,
i and download gigabyte easyTune6,
once intalled, in smart fan tab, you can play with cpu fan speed

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shocking becuz, its supposed to handle everything!

i'm not a fan of igpu stuff but after reading several reports on amd apu, i'm sold on the all-in-one AMD A8-3850 with hd6550d graphic card.

[eskro]

i'm not a fan of igpu stuff but after reading several reports on amd apu, i'm sold on the all-in-one AMD A8-3850 with hd6550d graphic card.

make yourself a new build man!!

[Beer40oz]

I like your hardware choices here bluray... especially that you have a Asrock mobo in your list.

AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz looks like a sweet choice to not use a separate GPU.

Does someone actually here have this? how is the playback? Macroblocking issues? So will you use CPU power on this or DXVA2?

Since you guys say that the CPU stock fan cooler sucks then witch to get for this? I see this is socket FM1...

[eskro]

any AMD coolers are compatible with FM1 im reading,,,

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after market heat sink options for fm1 socket- COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO and Scythe SCBSK-2000

[Gunserotti]

I would love to know how this build handles HD Audio in XBMC. This really look good and I might copy it. Thanks

[QLink]

I would love to know how this build handles HD Audio in XBMC. This really look good and I might copy it. Thanks

+1

and it would also be very interesting how it handles bluray 3D and how high is power consumption (standby/idle/load)

hope someone can share some experiences ...