Upgrading my HTPC Build - Celeron CPU's?

[Kurt_Wylde]

With Win7 just around the corner and my 4 year old XP:MCE HTPC groaning and (regularly) crashing, it's time to upgrade!


My current spec is below:

Athlon 64 X2 5200+
MSI NForce 430/6150 board (K8N)
1GB DDR RAM
Antec Fusion Case (430w PSU)
Hauppauge PVR500 MCE

In fairness it was fine when I first built it, only it struggles with some 720p content and 1080p is a slideshow.

Previously I've only really used AMD processors.. but apparently the new Intel Celeron's are pretty good.. and fine for HTPC's?

I won't be doing any gaming, just ripping the odd movie and pumping out HD content to my Plasma via HDMI (preferably onboard).

I'd want to keep my current case and basically swap out the guts with a new Mobo/CPU/RAM combo. What kind of CPU/Mobo would you guys recommend, is a Celeron a good choice these days??

I'd also like to add another DVB-T card so I can have 4x tuners, is the PVR500 still the one to get for the money?

Thanks!

Kurt

 

[Earl_Uk]

Before you go spending big bucks, up the ram to 2gb minimum and try a windows 7 release candidate or enterprise edition.

You might find it does the job fine then

 

[bryanchicken]

I agree with Earl.

I've got a 4850e CPU (which i believe is slower than yours). All 1080p content i have plays fine just using software (eg, no gpu) using coreavc.

Admittedly getting coreavc to work in windows 7 is slightly trickier than usual though, but fine if you use MPC-HC or something similar.

 

[Kurt_Wylde]

Thanks guys..

I must admit, I'm only running 1GB as the CPU cooler (Zalman flower I think) covers the 1st RAM slot on the mobo.
Plus, it's DDR1 memory, which is quite expensive compared to DDR2/3.