Plan for My New HTPC/Emulation Machine, Openions?

IrishMetalhead

Here are are the plans for my new HTPC that will also double up as a emulation machine as well, as well as a few pad support Steam games for Big Picture.
The goal here was to get it as small as I could to fit in my TV stand as well as being as low powered as it can be with keep enough of horse power to run my emulators plus games like Skyrim, Left 4 Dead 2 etc.
That's why I chose the AMD's new Athlon 5350 as it's a Qaud-Core and only has a TDP of 25W only downside is that it only has 2MB of cache but it will have a dedicated graphics card so the won't hurt it much.
Also chose a AMD R7 250 for the GPU since it's the fasted single slot, low profile card I could find, if one of NVIDA's vendors release the 750 or 750 TI that's low profile in the meantime tho that will change.
Just needing second opinions before I go ahead with it, So what do you guy think?

Item|Price
AMD Athlon 5350, Boxed, Sockel AM1, TDP 25W|€49.10
ASRock AM1B-ITX, AM1, ITX|€28.16
8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9|€65.23
Club 3D Radeon R7 250E Low Profile, 1GB GDDR5, VGA, DVI, HDMI|€86.50
Silverstone SST-ML05B Milo HTPC Gehäuse - schwarz, benötigt SFX-Netzteil|€43.88
SilverStone Strider Series 300W SFX12V|€48.61
Shipping|€11.99
Total|€333.47

Bit I already have:
32GB SSD for the OS (will be replaced with my 128GB 830 after I've upgraded my desktop to a 256GB)
WD 500GB 2.5 HDD
Slot loading DVD drive (will require 50 pin to SATA adapter but will be handy for the games I till have on disc)
Also have a 4 USB 2.0 back bracket that connect via headers which fits that case perfectly.

Joeface

Looking into something similar my self ,
using this Motherboard as I have a spare MicroATX case.

was going to try and use SteamOS and have XMBC plugin .I believe it still only supports Nvidia cards(steam OS that is) . I shall be following your build to see how it goes.
Very curious about the AM1 cpu's and how they will play games

Addled

I'd say that processor will struggle a fair bit with Skyrim but should be alright for stuff like left 4 dead 2. Emulation should be ok so long as it's older stuff like SNES or the like.

pcsx2, Dolphin or other newer console emulators would probably not run too well on it though, here's a few benchmarks:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7933/the-desktop-kabini-review-part-1-athlon-5350-am1/4

Doesn't include the 5350 but should give you an idea:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=353503

I'd say you'd get a much better gaming experience out of a haswell pentium for another ~€20

Item|Price
Intel Pentium G3220 Box, LGA1150|€44.01
ASRock H81M-ITX, Sockel 1150, ITX|€52.44
Total|€96.45

The AM1 parts do look very appealing for general purpose use though, the boards are so cheap compared to itx boards for socket 1150 or even fm2+.

TerrorFirmer

Second the pentium. The 5350 will be OK in some games but suffers very badly in others, there are a few decent reviews up on youtube testing it paired with a dedicated card. It's not worth it if you plan gaming.

There are low profile GTX750's available and that's way faster than the r7 250. Overclockers have a range of them, 750 and 750ti.

Wossack

interesting project! let us know how you get on with it

IrishMetalhead

gaming isn't the priority tho it's more of a side function, the first priority is power consumption hence why the am1 platform is more appealing to me
Also the 750 isn't an option as of yet since there isn't one that is low profile and single slot that will fit in the case I chose, space is a factor aswell.

Won't be building it for at least a month or two tho need to get the money together first.

TerrorFirmer

Up to yourself, but I wouldn't go with a 5350 even for casual gaming - it's too weak a processor. It'll do fine in certain games but like I said, from looking at reviews, it suffers extremely bad in others. It depends on how CPU limited the game in question is. Skyrim for example is fairly CPU dependant, so you'll suffer there (probably 50% slower than the G3220 which is the same price but 50w vs 25w), whereas if you wanted to play something like Battlefield 4 single player, that's far more GPU dependant and treats most CPU's pretty well.

My problem is that it somewhat dictates what games you can or can't play in the future which is a shame when you're building a new machine in 2014.

IrishMetalhead

Also was looking at this video where they got Skyrim running at 36.3 FPS at 1080p with a 750 Ti so it should be fine with it if I drop it down to 720p which is more than acceptable since it only be herself that be playing since I'll just play it on my desktop, Skyrim will be the newest game played on it since everything else will be running on my desktop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3hD0YYPORo

Lu Tze

IrishMetalhead wrote: »

Also was looking at this video where they got Skyrim running at 36.3 FPS at 1080p with a 750 Ti so it should be fine with it if I drop it down to 720p which is more than acceptable since it only be herself that be playing since I'll just play it on my desktop, Skyrim will be the newest game played on it since everything else will be running on my desktop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3hD0YYPORo

Or you could use steam in home streaming from your main desktop if the CPU is limiting you

TerrorFirmer

IrishMetalhead wrote: »

Also was looking at this video where they got Skyrim running at 36.3 FPS at 1080p with a 750 Ti so it should be fine with it if I drop it down to 720p which is more than acceptable since it only be herself that be playing since I'll just play it on my desktop, Skyrim will be the newest game played on it since everything else will be running on my desktop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3hD0YYPORo

That's a good example of how much of a bottleneck AM1 can be. That exact same setup with that G3220 instead of the 5350 for example would get 60+fps @1080p.

IrishMetalhead

Joeface wrote: »

Looking into something similar my self ,
using this Motherboard as I have a spare MicroATX case.

was going to try and use SteamOS and have XMBC plugin .I believe it still only supports Nvidia cards(steam OS that is) . I shall be following your build to see how it goes.
Very curious about the AM1 cpu's and how they will play games

I taught Valve announced that AMD is now supported? I could be wrong.
The only reason I'm going with a AM1 is because of power consumption if't not an issue for you you'd be alot better off with a FM2 Athlon or a Haswell Pentium.

IrishMetalhead

Don't want to use Steam OS since there will be plenty of programs that are Windows only on it, as I mentioned tho gaming is only the secondary priority and the first is size and power consumption, should of mention that it will only be running older games and Skyrim would be the newest and I'll only be using Emulators up to PS1/N64 generation.

IrishMetalhead

Update: Been a change in plan on the CPU since the opportunity to get a brand new Athlon 740 fell into my lap, my mate from England bought it last year for a project that he never got round to and offered to sell it to me for a cool €35
Paid for now just have to wait for him to post it out to me.
Also my boss informed me today that a ITX system was traded in for scrap today (shagged mobo) and the PSU is up for grab for a tenner if I want it and has been tested, he said it was a 350W Silverstone 80+ but it is a older model since it is non painted (awell atleast it's only a tenner) don't have the exact model number tho.
Lastly my case arrived today after exchanging to do a build without getting paid instead, have to say the is thing tiny, it's the size of a Sky digi box which is what I was hoping for, so now the build will be called Tiny.
So now all I need is the motherboard, RAM and the graphics card, hopefully they'll come before I know it, will keep y'all updated.

TerrorFirmer

Kinda strange that you were dead set to take a crappy CPU over a decent one to save power, and then you go and buy a more power hungry, slower cpu to save E15 on the G3220?

IrishMetalhead

€15 is a lot when you have next to nothing plus I wouldn't say it's a slower CPU at all, it may run a bit slower than the G3220 in single threaded apps but the 740 performs slightly better in multi threaded apps, other than the slightly higher power consumption from the AMD both chips are practically the same in real world performance, plus buying a dual core in this day and age doesn't make much sense to me especially when I'm not planning on upgrading it ever.

seraphimvc

g3220 is incredible in the best for bucks aspect, i am running everything smoothly (dota2 ultra setting) along with evga's gtx750, low temp low voltage (both consistently stays at 40C after i put in the noctua 140mm fan.

it is good for future upgrade as well, just pop in a good i5/i7 if needed/when they get cheaper.

edit: oh well didnt see that you said there will be no upgrade ever. But then i see more reason to get the pentium, save that 15quid to get a better mobo with better integrated graphics and get it done with or a slightly better card so that you can just take it out to use it for future build.

IrishMetalhead

Not saying the G3220 is a bad processor, I know it has more pros then cons over the Athlon like the better single threaded performance and the less power consumption but I prefer to take the extra threads since I do not plan on upgrading it after it's done (except maybe the PSU) so the appeal of possibly upgrading it to a core i series CPU isn't appealing espiecally since I need to start upgrading my main desktop first and foremost after this HTPC is done.