Celeron or i3 (ivy) - xbmc + torrent

Hello,

My name is Mircea , I am new to the forum and I wish to build a budget HTPC (cost is really important). I read "Your Very First HTPC? But Where do You Start?" by eskro and got almost everything figured out , except for the CPU.

My main target for this HTPC is to play 1080p without any issues and also use it as a NAS + torrent download station. Right now the athlon xp 3200+ I have repurposed for XBMC shutters when playing 720p and downloading at the same time.

I have a dedicated video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814121444 , that I am going to use in the new htpc , so the integrated GPU form the processor is not important.

As I see this , I have 2 options: celeron or i3 , the celeron CPU is $50 and the i3 is close to $120 so I am basically leaning towards the celeron but I am not sure if it will be able to handle xbmc 1080p + OS + torrents dowloading or other stuff running ?

What do you think ? Am I safe to go for the celeron ? Will it handle what I need it to or should I go for the i3 ??

Thanks,
Mircea

I used to have a Celeron G530 that handled all that you describe above and more. I also didn't have a separate video card.

I'm sure that any LGA 1155 mobo with HDMI and a Celeron G1610 will handle any HTPC thing you throw at it (except 3D).

I just built a Celeron G1610 based NAS. I chose the G1610 just in case it also had to serve as my HTPC later.

Just get an SSD and the Celeron will be more than enough.