potatochobit Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 how powerful is a one core sempron 130? say, compared to a socket 939 athlon2x64? i want to put a chip in an htpc but i think a phenomII 840 might be to much. the sempron is only 29$ i dont want to play games but bluray would be good i have a 5450 to handle the graphics Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_bowtie Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 they are fine....I have had several of dual core and single core semprons and they have been pretty good. good choice for a low power HTPC... I still run AM2 dual cores in most of my HTPCs and I down clock them to 2ghz or less... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardnrg Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 I'd say if you want to watch 1080p movies, and especially if you are using it as a true HTPC with TV cards, go for more than a single core CPU. The second rig in my sig is my HTPC, which is a quad TV tuner machine with 2xDVB-S and 2xDVB-T that I can record 4 TV shows at the same time while watching 1080p content. A single core CPU would choke if I tried to do this. Depends if HTPC means occasional use, or all-the-time use... we don't use the TV tuner or external cable/satellite boxes, the TV itself could just be a monitor with speakers since our HTPC does EVERYthing and it's in the lounge in the AV rack, under the TV. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatochobit Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 I have an Asus dual HD TV tuner, but its coaxial analog input and I hate the blur, I only record one show at at time I did look for one that can record over HDMI but I have not seen any do you have a cable select card? I dont see anyway of getting rid of my time warner box if I want to watch digital HD anyway, I almost bought a sempron 64 on ebay... AMD did a really bad naming scheme with these, every low budget chip in the last 5 years is called a sempron there were lots under 10$ but I think these are old laptop chips I heard you can unlock the cores like a phenomII but I'm not really worried about that mostly I watch hulu and crunchyroll with 720p streams I am looking for a shuttle case right now, but they all have 250w PSUs, not sure who thought that was a good idea. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Smith Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 AMD did a really bad naming scheme with these, every low budget chip in the last 5 years is called a sempron Same strategy for Intel; they are all called Pentiums. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
imm0rt41 Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 I am looking for a shuttle case right now, but they all have 250w PSUs, not sure who thought that was a good idea. I'm running a 400W in my shuttle to power an Athlon II based HTPC and it is complete overkill since the CPU is stock and the GPU is a GT240 haha Based on my experience, I would pick up an Athlon II over a sempron since an Athlon II can still be found for pretty cheap. My HTPC handles pretty much everything I have thrown at it so far...granted, I don't capture HD with tuner cards, but I often play 1080p content while transferring files around. No hiccups for me and it plays SC2 maxed out Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigball1 Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 I had a single core AMD running in my HTPC once. It lasted about 3 days as it was so slow running win7 h. changed the cpu to a dual core and what a huge difference. Im running a AMD Athlon II 245 that l picked up for $60. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatochobit Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 I ran into another snag how safe are these adapters? it seem my old PSU I dug up is 4 pin only and all new boards are 8 pin on the CPU Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RHKCommander959 Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 Same strategy for Intel; they are all called Pentiums. Or Celerons I ran into another snag how safe are these adapters? it seem my old PSU I dug up is 4 pin only and all new boards are 8 pin on the CPU Shouldn't need it, they are plenty safe but you can plug the 4 into an 8. Just make sure your power supply is good enough to run the system! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathmineral Posted October 21, 2011 Posted October 21, 2011 Shouldn't need it, they are plenty safe but you can plug the 4 into an 8. Just make sure your power supply is good enough to run the system! You don't need an adapter for that connector, I've setup and seen plenty of computers run just fine using the 4 plug in the 8. I've only ever seen stuff like that matter overclocking, one of my friends ran into a problem with overclocking because of that but that's the only trouble I've ever seen out of it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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