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only advantage to the athlon build is possibly a bit faster UI experience when navigating around in xbmc .. but I haven't really noticed any lag with my dual core ion + ssd + dds fanart setup.
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gfx format that drastically speeds up the rendering of large fanarts, etc. - you used to have to enable it in advancedsettings.xml and convert your library but i think its the default setting now, and xbmc will convert your fanart on the fly.
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maxinc
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Your setup looks great. Having a Zbox with the Atom 330 / ION combo and a fast SSD, I would be tempted to wish for a slightly faster CPU for the extra kick during XBMC navigation with some of the skins. With that being said, I got the box to watch movies and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this combo for this purpose. It is simply amazing.
If you are willing to accept the limited power and upgradability of the Atom 330/ION combo (and lack of fluidity with some of the more advanced XBMC skins), there isn't a single file this HTPC won't be able to play smoothly.
Don't worry about 3D or HD audio. To be able to see / hear those benefits, you would need serious kit 3D TV, HD capable AV Receiver, expensive speakers and not to mention a finely tuned hearing. When you'll be ready to purchase all of those, a $60 worth of video card will seem like spare change so you can always add it later.
XBMC Live: i3 530 / GT210 / 2GB / SSD + 2 x Zotac HD01 / 2GB / SSD
unRAID Pro: 6 x 1TB + 2 x 1.5TB + 2 x 2TB + 2 x 500G over GbE
HP Micro Server: SABnzbd+, Sickbeard, Couchpotato, uTorrent, Media Companion, MySQL, MKV Toolnix
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Really all the power is in the ion graphics .. don't look for the atom chip itself to do much of anything for you, dualcore or otherwise. For only running xbmc though, its certainly up to the task - at least with the skins I've used.
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will the reduced power of the atom have a serious impact on the speed the system boots? (win7 64 bit)
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that cpu will play anything without a dedicated graphic card.. however, what do you mean by slow? Do you already have a SSD?? Poofy says his atom+ION+SSD rig feels faster than his quadcore+standard HDD..