Official Sandy Bridge / LGA1155 for HTPCs Thread - Page 53

If ethernet cables are too short they can also have issues.

Just Thought I would post back and say I love the new I3 build. It is everything I thought it would be and then some. I actually enjoy surfing a bit on the 50" plasma

Build ended up as
MSI H67MA-E35
I3-2100
Kingston 2X2gb 1333 Hyper X
Samsung F4 2TB
Sentey 2420 case and power supply

Drumroll...... all for less than 350 with tax not including a $10 rebate and got half of the total cost out of my old setup.

Will probably swap the case eventually and go with a Pico, but for the price I couldn't pass it up. Anyone know a X360 sized case that can fit a matx with (2) 3.5 drive bays(dont need optical)
Only downside so far is the stock cooler on the I3 is louder than I would like. So I have a Scythe Shuriken on the way to hush her up hopefully. Should be overkill to keep it cool, but that is kind of the point. Thanks to everyone for all the posts in the thread. Lots of good info. It does everything I've asked so far and I get 55mb transfers from one pc to the other now as a bonus ! Now just to get the team at XBMC working on DXVA for it....... lol.

I was positive that I'd find the stock i3 cooler too loud. Once I limit it to about 40% fan speed, however, it's approaching utterly inaudible. And with the way I rigged my case with an extra 120mm case fan (a super quiet one), I'm guessing I'm going to get away with this under load.

Anyway, at least try mucking with the cooler's fan speed.

Not sure I fully understand the remark, but if you mean that XBMC should be able to use DXVA... well it does !
And you can even use an external video player called from XBMC that will allow all sort of video processing and rendering.

If did not understand correctly, please forget my answer

What are the rpm at 40%? I'm not sure what the CPU fan speed range is for my i3-2100 stock fan, but allowing the CPU to control it, it usually seems to run around 1000-1100rpm and is virtually noiseless at that speed.

Agreed.

I think regarding Intel stock coolers as a whole as "crap" should now be considered a thing of the past. Its possible that they make better coolers now but I think what is even more likely is the CPUs now use much less power and produce much less heat. Especially for HTPC use.

I know XBMC has DXVA, but using it with the intel igp does not currently work with the stock setup in XBMC. I have other players but can do 95% of what I want in XBMC and really don't like to veer to far and start confusing the wife with launching external players. Hulu+XBMC+WMC is enough for her to take in. If there is something I'm missing, by all means point it out.

And about the stock I3 cooler, I don't believe it is crap at all. I was just moving from another setup that was noisy and wanted the new one to be virtually silent. With the scythe at 50% speed and 2 case fans, the whole setup is about as loud as a STB and my cpu stays at 40 to 42c while playing 1080 mkv. I was at 55 plus with the stock cooler anf fan runing at twice the RPM.

I can't check right now because the motherboard is on its way back to Newegg, but I'm really noise sensitive and it was quiet. I'll report the real number back when I get the replacement mobo.

NewEgg.com has a $10 off deal on the G620 with coupon code EMCYTZT564. I just ordered one and the ASUS P8H61-M uATX board. I am going to use the motherboard to replace my living room HTPC internals (ATI HD5670 / Phenom II x3 / Gigabyte 780G), take the i3-2100 from my bedroom HTPC, drop the i3-2100 into the living room PC and put the G620 in the bedroom HTPC. Some of the old HTPC parts I will sell (HD5670 & Phenom II x3 705e) and with the rest start to put together a new WHS v2 with the old mobo, RAM and a 5050e CPU I have lying around. The SSD and HDD will go with the new Sandy Bridge parts along with the Blu-ray ROM and I'll reuse the HTPC casefor the living room HTPC.

Everyone get all that?

Fun times!

OMG!! I actually DID understand the geek speak!

Pleasant surprise to find out that these 2nd Gen Sandybridge chips don't need the GPU cards as long as you aren't gaming in 3D. All of which drops the system temp to ambient +15 or 20F with a stock cooler!

So after hemming and hawing for what seemed to be forever, I bought a couple of DH67CF/G620s. Im not overclocking- in fact, i want to set the max multiplier to 22 when I figure out how to do it on these motherboards. I dont thinking cooling is too much of an issue in this application?

I had plans to put it in mini-box M350s. With the stock coolers.

It fits- well, sort of. Turns out I cant also fit my SSD inside because the edge guard for the fan is up against the SSD.

So Im looking to decrease the height of the fan by say 10mm or hopefully a little more. I dont think width is a problem - its the height.

A few pages back there was a brief discussion of slim height fans, but it didnt seem like any consensus was reached.

It looked like the two contenders were the "Gelid Slim Silence i-Plus" ($22 on sale) and the "Silverstone NT07-1156 90mm" ($27 at the egg) were the front runners.

I like the Gelid better since it is shorter(28mm versus 37mm), but Im concerned about potential quality since the name doesnt sound familiar to me like Thermaltake or Scythe etc is. Only bummer about the Gelid is that it appears I need to remove the motherboard to install this cooler whereas the scythe has pushpins so no mobo removal is necessary? Am I correct on this?

Thoughts?

I have the GELID HSF; really happy with the performance and noise level. You will need to remove the mobo with it, and it is a bit larger than the stock HSF because it's square so you may have issues with it covering components like FP USB headers depending on the board (haven't tried it in the CF).

I doubt you are installing any Scythe cooler without removing the motherboard, but maybe. That said, you mention the Silverstone, which is made by Silverstone and don't mention a Scythe.

The Scythe Shuriken rev. B shouldn't need to be removed for with AMD or Intel, if I recall correctly.

I just swapped an i3-2100 out and a Pentium G620 into my bedroom HTPC. I re-ran the WEI assessment and all the numbers came back identical. I would have expected the CPU and video numbers to drop but they did not. Not that I believe WEI is the end-all-be-all but I did find it interesting nonetheless.

Sorry if I confused this- I am deciding between the Gelid and the Silverstone. I mentioned Scythe as a name I know and "trust". The Silverstone definitely appears no motherboard removal is necessary given its push pins.

Thats one other thing I wanted to figure out- how much bigger than the stock cooler is the Gelid? Where can I find exact dimensions for the stock cooler please so I can compare the specs?

It occurred to me that some people may buy the 6xx-T Pentiums, and not use the stock HSF because they purchased an aftermarket HSF.

So, if you have a 6xx "-T" that comes with the low profile heatsink, and its just gonna gather dust in a corner, I would like to buy a few (like 4 of them).

Please PM me if you are interested. I will pay shipping + what we agree is a fair price.

Hi all

which chip should i go for to run xbmx windows 7 for very very high bitrate blu rays and mkvs the Intel Core i3 2100T or a Intel Core i3 2120 for a HTPC build.

i know one runs at 35w and the other at 65w but is there any difference ?

the price of the Intel Core i3 2100T 2.5ghz is £8 more than the Intel Core i3 2120 3.3ghz asht 2120 is on offer at the moment.

i dont know which to go for as i dont want any droped frames at all would there be much difference in heat and keeping them both cool and quiet.

thanks

Personally I would not use either, I got suckered into moving to the i3-2100 only to find the Blu-ray 24.976 bug that causes a video glitch every 4 minutes and the lip-sync varies 42ms every 4 minutes as well. You might try a AMD discrete card or wait on the fixed CPU supposedly coming in 2012.

but i need a cpu this week and i already have a ati 6570 gfx card amd i can not wait until 2012.

i need advice on both of the chips above

Trying new compact build with DH61AG. Currently considering:

Case: M350, but possibly something else that can fit optical
Board: DH61AG (just bought @ Buy.com)
CPU: G620T (35W)
Memory: generic 2x2GB

Fan: possibly Mini-Box low-profile one if stock is too tall/loud

1. would this setup (CPU) be OK for 1080p h.264 playback and some very light gaming (MAME)?
2. what case would be compact but can fit slim optical?
3. what PSU/adapter would work or do I not need one at all?

Thanks!

People still believe that there is a 30W difference!? Read here. It's a shame that the op has never been updated.

Intel HD Graphics (2000/3000) + XBMC does not work well in two points:

- You have to disable DXVA2; that means the playback relies on software (CPU).
- Hence deinterlacing is pretty bad.

I'm a believer. I think the 2100 and 2100t are both excellent as far as power is concerned for HTPC.

I also have been paying less attention to manufacturer specs, benchmarks, etc and more to "real world" results like those from renethx.

To me: Real World Testing >>> Review articles with Benchmarks >> Manufacturer Marketing BS

FWIW, I have a few M350s, each with a G620 (Im using the DH67CF mobo). There is an excellent post a few pages ago by renethx about the differences between the -T and "regular" CPU. I agree with him- the only plus to getting the -T is to get the low profile HSF. The non-T is actually cheaper, and by a simple BIOS setting, you can force the non-T essentially into a -T, and should you want more processing power, the higher clock frequency is still available to you via that same BIOS setting.

Having said all that, I am struggling with getting a low profile HSF that fits well. Although the full size HSF fits in the M350, there is no extra clearance, and it means you will not be able to reasonably mount an SSD in the case. The fan gets in the way. My only current solution is to use velcro to mount the SSD way over to the side.

I am looking at http://www.directron.com/ssilenceiplus.html?gsear=1 as a possible HSF for my configuration, but dont yet know if it will fit my 67CF mobo.

As far as picoPSU, I am using the picoPSU-120, and it is working out great. Only caution is that you need to purchase a P4 connector separately for the mobo to be happy. I havent tried the 80 or 90 pico, but I assume they would also work well. I like the 120 because it has extra headroom if needed.


Joe

cheers

Q1 is the much difference between the T and none T at stock speeds is 16W what would that be in heat would that be 2c or 10c hotter ?

Q2 also bought a passive 6570 so xbmc should not be a problem also just woundering would a i3 2.5ghz and 3.3ghz handle 1080p full 45mbps per sec just using the cpu and not any gfx help or would it strugle ? as i have herd i3 can not handle full bitrate blus and mkvs ?

Q3 are the both the T and none T version coolers silent or is is best to replace them ?

Q4 can you underclock the i3 2120 on a P8H67-M EVO to match the T version if i ever wanted to and if so how do you just change the multiplier
cheers

You will see 16W difference only at extreme condition: both CPU and GPU 100% load. What's the usage of your system? At video playback, you will see almost zero difference of power consumption. The only real advantage of 2100T is that it comes with a cooler of height 30mm that is good for some cases such as Apex MI-008 mini-ITX case. If the stock cooler of 2100 (45mm tall) fits your case, 2100 is simply a better choice (more powerful CPU, better cooler).

At video playback (whether GPU video decode acceleration is on or off) there is *zero* difference of performance and power consumption between 2100 and 2100T. I think the chart in this post tells everything. Isn't that enough?

At video playback with good case airflow, either cooler is very quiet. Most people don't feel that cooler needs to to be replaced.

The main difference between 2100T, 2100, 2120 are the clock multiplier:

- 2100T: x25 (100MHz BCLK x 25 = 2.5GHz)
- 2100: x31
- 2120: x33

There is almost zero difference between the three at video playback (< 30% CPU load).

thanks

oh can you wake up asus miotherboards from sleep using the built in network ports ?

my sytem will be running xbmc and movies only thats all its getting built for

What motherboard would you go with for a HTPC

the Asus P8H67-M Evo or Asus P8P67-M as there both the same price, the P8H has the display ports but no high quality caps, the PHP does not have display ports but has high quality caps.

I have also bought a GFX card so i can use either board but i was woundering if there would be any reason to go for the higher quality caps ovther the none versions ?

cheers

Thank you renethx for the cool info about ASRock boards use of audio over DVI -> HDMI adapter. Just put a new htpc together with ASRock H67m-GE board and i3 2100 and really am happy so far with my build. I am now able to send hdmi to tv, and dvi-hdmi to my AVR for lossless audio.

The other cool thing about ASRock board is that it allows you to use 775 heatsink, so I was able to use my aftermarket 775 cpu heatsink instead of the dinky intel one.