HTPC Upgrade

brushedsun

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HI Guys,

I have had my HTPC for a couple of years now and yesterday i got a shiny new 3d 47LW450U 3d tv and unfortunately my HTPC is struggling to playback the 3d content, so i have decided to give it an upgrade.

My Current system is

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+
3gb PC2-4300 (266 MHz)
GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard with ATI Radeon HD 3200 on board Graphics
thermaltake DH101 case
1 x 2tb hard drive
2x 1tb hard drive
Alpine 64 PRO
bequiet 400w psu

I am planning on keeping the case and upgrading the spec. Currently the system is running win 7 ultimate 32 bit but i am going to upgrade this to 64 bit



so i have 2 options

1 replace the motherboard, processor and ram and either go onboard graphics or buy a graphics card

2 upgrade the processor and memory and add in a graphics card.

Ideally i am not looking to spend more than £350

so i suppose if i go option 1 or 2 i would like to hear any thoughts or recommendations on what path to go on
 
If I were you I would upgrade the graphics card first. Either a Nvidia GT430 or a AMD 6570.

David
 
I've got a not dissimilar spec machine myself and with Freeview HD now arrived I've been thinking about an upgrade (I'm also out of SATA ports for yet more storage, so an upgrade may help with that).

The AMD chips tend to be cheaper, but I've been tempted by a nice low-power i3 using onboard graphics, it seems to offer very good bang for the buck (assuming they've sorted any blu-ray playback issues, but that shouldn't affect me as I'm not outputting HD sound).

Either route should be possible to achieve for under £350.
 
DavidT - thanks a mil, yeah i was having a look at the motherboard specs, i think ill upgrade the graphics, then the cpu and then memory, the only thing ill miss out on is usb3 this way which i can live without

Longplay, have you decided on your upgrade path yet?
 

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