IVIYTH0S Posted July 12, 2013 Posted July 12, 2013 So right now I have an E-350 APU based HTPC that's served all of my needs, this little processor has really blown me away for the amount of bang it can make (playing Zelda 64 at 1920x1080 with AA and texture filtering silky smooth).... Though I've finally found its weakness, for when I try to play fully uncompressed/ripped bluray files, the little guy can't keep up anymore. I can play them on my laptop, and by extension I could plug in my laptop if I want to ever watch blurays I rip myself on our TV but it kind of defeats the purpose of ever buying the HTPC. So I have 3 possible options I'm considering:1) Upgrade the micro-ITX internals to maybe a sandy or ivy bridge of some sort (though doing quick pricing...it might not be worth it for what little I gain in actual usage. I'd need a board, CPU, AND memory since my special Sapphire Pure Fusion board runs So-DIMM DDR3 so I cant reuse them ) 2)Just use laptop when I want to watch these types of movies 3)Use my desktop to compress them down to a more manageable bitrate that the E350 can handle. I mean, it's not like our projection TV can even make full use of an uncompressed BR since it can only display 1080i. I just want to watch the movie and then delete the massive amount of movie data off my drive. Feel free to offer up alternative suggestions Here's the little case I'm working with, the Antec ISK100: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black64 Posted July 12, 2013 Posted July 12, 2013 2. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted July 12, 2013 Posted July 12, 2013 2. Yeah, that'd probably be the easiest...wish I could OC the APU lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black64 Posted July 12, 2013 Posted July 12, 2013 Whenever I get problems like this I have found that the best solution has always been the simplest. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper Posted July 12, 2013 Posted July 12, 2013 Funny thing is I just pull my HTPC apart and am in the process of rebuilding it. It has a Zotac H67-WiFi ITX board in it that I was able to flash the bios to accept a ivy-bridge (just got an i7-3770k ES from work that the testers where done with), I got 16G of (Corsair Vengence) ram and a couple hd's (a 500g or a 1T not sure, boot and a 2T data) with a little 250w itx psu. Which should make a nice little system. I currently have the gut's of the system setting on my desk at home running, doing a little burn in to make sure the cpu is ok I'd say just go with what ever you feel like spending and will fill your needs, Maybe look for deals on a processor and build around that... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comp Dude2 Posted July 12, 2013 Posted July 12, 2013 It sounds like you are really happy with the current setup so I'd be inclined just to leave it completely as is. Try compressing the videos and if you aren't happy with the quality then go for the laptop option. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_TheAlexO Posted July 12, 2013 Posted July 12, 2013 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonerboy779 Posted July 12, 2013 Posted July 12, 2013 Upgrade just the CPU? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_bowtie Posted July 13, 2013 Posted July 13, 2013 can't upgrade the CPU it is embedded.... Can you add a half height video card? all of my HTPCs are also E350 rigs and the Asus one is Micro-ATX and I just added a card for full uncompressed blurays and it works perfect. not that it didnt before but I had the card and extra ram so....... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted July 13, 2013 Posted July 13, 2013 Whenever I get problems like this I have found that the best solution has always been the simplest. Funny thing is I just pull my HTPC apart and am in the process of rebuilding it. It has a Zotac H67-WiFi ITX board in it that I was able to flash the bios to accept a ivy-bridge (just got an i7-3770k ES from work that the testers where done with), I got 16G of (Corsair Vengence) ram and a couple hd's (a 500g or a 1T not sure, boot and a 2T data) with a little 250w itx psu. Which should make a nice little system. I currently have the gut's of the system setting on my desk at home running, doing a little burn in to make sure the cpu is ok I'd say just go with what ever you feel like spending and will fill your needs, Maybe look for deals on a processor and build around that... You're probably right, it's not a big deal to set up my laptop since we have an hdmi ready for a quick hot plug in. Just sucks that my HTPC just sits there and is pretty much made useless by this new issue. It sounds like you are really happy with the current setup so I'd be inclined just to leave it completely as is. Try compressing the videos and if you aren't happy with the quality then go for the laptop option. Yeah...the problem would be finding the best way to get them smaller but still be decent looking. I found a way to do that with DVD ripped movies but then the audio doesn't sync up with them. That frustrated me to the point of just stopping the backup of my DVDs to my harddrive. I also stopped so my 2TB would still be adequate with out having to get a bigger drive, nor having to figure out that unsolvable audio issue which I believe is a problem with the re-encoding program changing the framerate of the files from 29.97fps to 24fps but there's no way to set that before beginning. 3 Thanks for the input! Upgrade just the CPU? No because... can't upgrade the CPU it is embedded.... Can you add a half height video card? all of my HTPCs are also E350 rigs and the Asus one is Micro-ATX and I just added a card for full uncompressed blurays and it works perfect. not that it didnt before but I had the card and extra ram so....... Really, that did it?? So it's the GPU portion of the core and not the CPU that's holding me back?? I don't really have much room in there but maybe I'll pull the board out and throw my dad's 8800GT in there and see if it can run smooth. Thanks for the tip, I'll let you if that solves my problem Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_bowtie Posted July 13, 2013 Posted July 13, 2013 for me it seems like it was the combination of CPU/GPU plus the use of the onboard ram to process all that with little left over for anything else....once adding the card that took car of the ram usage issue as well. The card I used was a cheap 4650 half height Passive cooled card and it worked great... so even something comparative to todays standards should be more that fine. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted July 13, 2013 Posted July 13, 2013 for me it seems like it was the combination of CPU/GPU plus the use of the onboard ram to process all that with little left over for anything else....once adding the card that took car of the ram usage issue as well. The card I used was a cheap 4650 half height Passive cooled card and it worked great... so even something comparative to todays standards should be more that fine. Thanks for the tips, I'll see what I can figure out. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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