A6-3500 vs. A8-3870 for xbmc pvr + mame emulator
#1
Hi Everyone,
I've been reading the forum a bit and I am kind of undecided what HTPC I should get. I'm in group #4 however I also intend to play some shmups via mame (on Win) and also consider using this as a PVR. I have a ps3 for gaming which can also play some mp4 files but XBMC is really much more integrated with the streaming addons and looks like much more FUN to play around with.

Options I put together using the awesome information I found on these pages:

1)
* AMD A-Series A6-3500, 3x 2.10GHz, boxed
* ASRock A75M-ITX, A75 (Sockel-FM1, PC3-14900U DDR3)
* 2x Kingston ValueRAM DIMM 4GB PC3-10667U CL9 (DDR3-1333)
* Antec ISK 300-65, 65W, Mini-ITX
* 2x Sharkoon SilentEagle 1000, 80x80x25mm, 1000rpm, 19.3m³/h, 8.9dB

~ 240 EUR
This should be on par with my macbook core2 2.4GHz that runs xbmc smoothly and also the mame games i was talking about

2)
* AMD A-Series A8-3870K Black Edition, 4x 3.00GHz, boxed
* ASRock A75M-HVS, A75 (dual PC3-14900U DDR3)
* 2x Kingston ValueRAM DIMM 4GB PC3-10667U CL9 (DDR3-1333)
* Antec New Solution NSK1480, 350W TFX
* 2x Sharkoon SilentEagle 1000, 80x80x25mm, 1000rpm, 19.3m³/h, 8.9dB

~ 290 EUR
According to the CPU Bench figures this has 200% the performance though its only 120% the price of the above? I might consider using this on some 3D games like SC2 Crysis etc. Also recording multiple HD Streams is probably gonna work out better.


3)
* Apple Tv 2

~ 90 EUR
This is sort of the lazy&cheap&postpone option which obviously would only provide me with XBMC streaming video... But it's really way cheaper :-)




So what do you think? Is it a no brainer to choose 2) or is it way too powerful to use in the living room?

Are the cases big enough to put in a tv card later?

THX for your help Smile
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#2
Morbo,
Welcome to the forum....!

It seems that you might be using your HTPC for multi-task. In this case, I would go with #2. You'll get the most powerful all-in-one APU, and you will have more room to upgrade in the future too.......
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
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#3
Out of interest, which PVR setup (backend etc.) are you planning to try with XBMC? I've just put an A8-3850 system together and was thinking of leaving PVR duties to Windows Media Center and all other playback to XBMC. Has XBMC's PVR implementation become usable now?
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#4
altho i know #1 can handle it.

since u plan on doing many things, like bluray said, go for #2,,,

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A6-3500 vs. A8-3870 for xbmc pvr + mame emulator0