HTPC Build

[HumbleMobo]

I wouldnt waste time with the 7870k (i own one)... get the 7850k. its so easy to OC these APUs that even a fool can do it.  Especially the ASrock board have a great BIOS for beginners, and they have good enough power delivery to give you a good OC.

 

Freezer7 is much weaker then Freezer 13, which costs just a little bit more. Alternativly, get a CM TX3. They are great, and cheap.

 

Please do not suggest intel for iGPU... they simply arent worth it (yet).... until intel can match Kaveri in iGPU power, they make no sense for even light gaming.

If Intel ever issued a i3 with Iris or Iris Pro iGPU, then sure, intel all the way. But Haswell is 30-50% weaker then Kaveri in iGPU, and the old HD4600 does not support iGPU video acceleration the way Kaveri does it...

 

Also, H97 is wasted on i3. you cannot OC, better just roll with a cheaper B81 or B85 board....

Yeah he's right it is actually completely impossible to over clock an i3 and you'd be better off with my AMD solution instead

[jimakos234]

Also, H97 is wasted on i3. you cannot OC, better just roll with a cheaper B81 or B85 board....

B85/h81. And h97 is not meant for overclocking either, just a newer platform than b85/h87/h81.z97 is

[Guest trucker2]

There are people who use a rasberry pi 2 with a special version of OpenELEC for an HTPC.

Rasberry pi 2 is a 35 buck credit card sized PC that started out as a learning tool and took off in popularity.

 

Not a suggestion just an example.

[Tijuanero]

Humblemobo the high end pc you showed me is kinda what I'm looking for as far as quality of parts I would like. The items I don't wanna go cheap on are the CPU Motherboard and graphics card only if it would absolutely make a difference adding one just remember this will be for movie watching mainly I don't play games well if I do add any kind of games it's only gonna be an emulator for old School games you know N64 Genesis super Nintendo etc.