Thinking about switching from Celeron to Athlon 64 for HTPC (1 Viewer)

[Mike_J_Potter]

I am thinking about switching my HTPC from a Celeron 2.8 ghz to a Athlon 64 3500+ in my HTPC. I know I am going to have to replace the Mini ATX board and replace the AGP card (Geforce 6200) with a PCI express Geforce 6600. Main reason I want to do this is the 2.8 celeron runs way too hot in the small case which causes the power supply and other fans to speed up making it too loud (my current gaming pc makes less noise) and during some HD content playback it pauses a little bit even with 1 gig of Ram. I will probably overclock the Athlon 64 to 2400 mhz, will this be enough power to playback everything all formats smoothly, I never had issues with the 2.8ghz besides WMA HD content (mainly the HDnet discovery launch wma file)? Not to mention I know I can run the 3500+ fast and quiet, I am using it in this pc right now and it makes barely any noise even under heavy load.

 

[Kyle McKnight]

Just chiming in cause I'll be keeping an eye on the responses here. I'm buying the SilverStone LC03 case and will just be putting my shuttle ss51g guts in it for now...but by the new year I'll be putting in an Athlon 3000+ or higher setup.

 

[Diallo B]

man this is funny!

that athlon will flat out smoke that celeron. that celly is not even close to the same class as that athlon. not even the same galaxy.

you will have no problems. if anything the athlon is overkill.

 

[SethH]

If heat is your main concern then you might consider a mobile processor. Sure, the Athlon will run cooler than the Celeron, but I'm not sure if you're going to see a dramatic difference. At least get a nice heatsink (e.g. Zalman).

 

[Paul Padilla]

AMD has gotten better the last few years, but they still tend to run hotter than Intel processor by and large. Upgrading for the speed is a smart idea, but you're probably still going to have to look into revamping your cooling.

 

[Scott L]

c'mon man get with the times link 1 | link 2

One of my systems has an AMD Sempron 64 2600+ (slightly oc'ed to 1.8ghz) and it plays 1080p WMV-HD videos smooth as butter. Not bad for $63.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

Check out http://www.silentpcreview.com for your parts in general, should help you build a whisper quiet setup.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

you're joking, right?

CJ

 

[Diallo B]

ROTFLMAO!

 

[Parker Clack]

I have a AMD 64bit in my HTPC and it is a screamer. I was so happy with the performance of the 64bit in my HTPC that I built a AMD 64X2. With 1G of RAM with a bus of 2000Mhz my PC no longer lags at all.

I can hardly wait for the 64bit software to come out to take advantage of the 64bit processors.

Buy the AMD64 for your HTPC and don't look back.

Parker

 

[Paul Padilla]

:b You got me there. For the record I've always been an Intel guy, but spec-ing out my last machine, I went with an Athlon 64 2800 based on Anandtech's Doom III mid range specs. Not a true HTPC, but it plays 1080p Windows Media files smooth as the proverbial baby's bottom.

 

[Rommel_L]

Mike,

Just make sure its the A64 3500+ VENICE. Paired with the right 939-socket mobo, you can bump (or mildly OC) the freq from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz with stock cooling. This machine will become an overkill HTPC / decent gaming rig.