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Thoughts on the i7 3770 for htpcs

post #1 of 7
12/25/12 at 1:05pm
Thread Starter 
Okay Boxing Day Sale the thing will be $250

Originally I was pondering hte i5 3570K wihch is about $220 or the i3 3225 which is the cheapest.

If all goes well I wlll share my plunder from tomorrow's boxing day sales.

So the reason I'm looking at these cpus is for hd4000 I'm looking to build a htpc that does blu ray, 3d and has the option of madvr (not sure if I care about that).

By all accounts the i5 should be fine but for $30 more could get the i7.

Now regardless of the cpu I was going to get a low profile cpu cooler is the fact that the tdp for the i7 about 20 higher than the i5 something to consider or not?

Guess what I'm asking is, is it worth it to go up to the i7 for an extra $30. I mean the extra power might be nice for ripping blu rays and dvds faster.
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post #2 of 7
12/25/12 at 2:20pm
That is a tremendous overkill. I'm running an i3 and I can do all of that just fine and use only a total 30W for the entire system at idle. The HD4000 in my i3 work just fine for BluRay (HD3000 would work as well). An i7 has over twice the TDP, which means more heat, which translates into more noise coming from your HTPC box. A low profile cooler is not going to be adequate to cool an i7 to reasonable temperatures.

Unless you are using this HTPC as a video transcoding box or doing large digital image processing, you are throwing away your money.
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post #3 of 7
12/25/12 at 3:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by godsfshrmn View Post

That is a tremendous overkill. I'm running an i3 and I can do all of that just fine and use only a total 30W for the entire system at idle. The HD4000 in my i3 work just fine for BluRay (HD3000 would work as well). An i7 has over twice the TDP, which means more heat, which translates into more noise coming from your HTPC box. A low profile cooler is not going to be adequate to cool an i7 to reasonable temperatures.
Unless you are using this HTPC as a video transcoding box or doing large digital image processing, you are throwing away your money.

So an i3 3225 is good enough? Can't remember the price I think they go for about $130 to 150.... I do want to use the computer to put my dvd and blu ray library onto hard drives but to be honest I don't care if it takes longer to do. So long as it gets the job done. I remember copying dvd movies using a pentium with 1 Ghz and while slow it did the job many many times.

I guess this is a case of a deal is not always a deal.
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post #4 of 7
12/25/12 at 4:02pm
The 3570K is on sale for $150 plus tax tomorrow at Tiger Direct. It's already overkill, I'm glad I stayed with the two i3 3220's that I bought for $70 each on Black Friday.
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post #5 of 7
12/25/12 at 4:05pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cyberspyder View Post

The 3570K is on sale for $150 plus tax tomorrow at Tiger Direct. It's already overkill, I'm glad I stayed with the two i3 3220's that I bought for $70 each on Black Friday.

Thinking about it but going to Canada computers first as they have all the other parts I need except cpu on sale. May try and go to tirger direct afterwards. Worst case scenario stick with an i3 3225
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post #6 of 7
12/25/12 at 8:41pm
damn, stuck in st john's, NL.

looking at canada computers boxing day sale, 3tb seagate drives for 79 for first 10 in door then 99 thereafter. and no online sales. best i am getting here is 3tb external wd drives for 118, and even that is online costco. local costco cant find the stock they are supposed to have.

used to have canada computers right next to our place with living in toronto.
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post #7 of 7
12/25/12 at 9:44pm
If your going to play games, then go for it. But otherwise I'd go for an i3 for HTPC use. I went with an 3570k. I can underclock it if I want and overclock it for power when I need and it was affordable.
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