what's going on?

[Churchill]

i've just done some quick calc's and to buy my HTPC setup on amazon comes to around £1850, im sure I can shop around and get it cheaper and I already have some of the parts

receiver is £750 new today (mine is 2 years old)
speakers £1800 new today (mine are 2 years old)
lcd tv £760 new today (mine is 2 years old)

Ah, just as an update we picked up a 32" LG 4010 at the weekend, very happy with it.

[Money Money Money]

A good friend of mine has a popcorn Hour media player, and a harddrive tank??

It holds all his movies/pictures/videos/music

Don't know much about it all but he had it all hooked up to HD projector and souround sound.

HTH

[norrahe]

- the cpu has the latest technology from intel with full hd graphics on the processor, released jan 1st 2010
- the motherboard has usb3 ports and is after a lot of research is generally rated the best matx motherboard currently available, matx because i dont want a huge case so atx is out.
- tv is the hauppage dual tuner x 2 i.e 4 tv channels available to record/watch/stream to slingbox
- agreed graphics and sound could be seperated out to seperate cards if I was playing hard core gaming but im not a hard core gamer, as long as it displays hd quality sound and graphics that is more than sufficient for my needs, plus adding the high end graphics adds heat and noise which isnt what i want from a htpc, fast and silent were the key parts

just curious, what would you change of my setup (apart from the case)? I'm open to any idea changes..

how on earth can you spend 3.5k on a home built htpc? the 2k was simply the htpc part, excluding receiver and speakers

You might want to consider a separate graphics card, if you are playing something like blu-ray on an hd tv, then you can avail of the upscaling that these cards would provide for more high definition experience.

[Xenophon]

chef's audio visual setup

Sorry, buddy.

[Churchill]

You might want to consider a separate graphics card, if you are playing something like blu-ray on an hd tv, then you can avail of the upscaling that these cards would provide for more high definition experience.

Go on, I'll bite...

What would a card offer that the on-chip graphics processor doesn't that's particularly relevant to HD processing?

[Mich the Tester]

You are all so much more technically advanced than me. I bought a turntable and an amplifier last year to listen to my collection of Deep Purple classics.

[BoredBloke]

- the cpu has the latest technology from intel with full hd graphics on the processor, released jan 1st 2010

How does that compare with a good CPU and a good graphics card?

[Churchill]

How does that compare with a good CPU and a good graphics card?

What does he need "a good graphics card" for? He's using it for HD video, not graphics rendering.

[chef]

You might want to consider a separate graphics card, if you are playing something like blu-ray on an hd tv, then you can avail of the upscaling that these cards would provide for more high definition experience.

How does that compare with a good CPU and a good graphics card?

review of the i5 661 here by trusted reviews

seperate review here

We’ve already reviewed a processor from Intel’s latest Core i5 range, and we found that it was an excellent choice for anyone interested in 3D games or video editing

This strange new design means that when paired with a suitable motherboard the i5-661 can connect up to a monitor via VGA, DVI or HDMI with no need for either a separate graphics chip on the motherboard or a separate graphics card. And, with the graphics processor and the main processor rolled into one, they only need one fan to keep them cool. Having fewer fans, and less noise, is ideal for computers designed to sit in the living room.

Most home entertainment computers need to play Blu-ray discs, and the i5-661’s graphics chip has been designed with this in mind. The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD can decode all the types of video found on Blu-ray discs, so there’s no need to add a separate graphics card to play high-quality video.

So is the i5-661 a good buy?

The answer depends on what you’ll be using your computer for. If you’ll be playing the latest 3D games, look elsewhere – adding a separate graphics card would make the one included on this chip a waste of money.

Similarly, for power-hungry tasks such as video conversion other i5 processors such as the i5-750 provide more power.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking to build or buy a quiet computer to play Blu-ray discs, this is an ideal choice.

sums me and my situation up ideally I think

[norrahe]

review of the i5 661 here by trusted reviews

seperate review here

sums me and my situation up ideally I think

I think what I was trying to get across is the facility of the additional graphics card to upsample from DVDs, whereby there will not be much of a comparitive change on blu-ray, the advantage is clearer on simple dvd quality. You won't get the same facility regarding dvd on an inbuilt graphics card.