[Shape of Grey]

So we're finally moving into a house and doing a bit of an overhaul with the "home theater" ; adding an AVR (Denon X1000), and a 2.1 (to start) and probably new Vizio 60/65" P series when they come out. I didn't even think about the actual HTPC until and being out of the HTPC scene for a while so I'm a bit out of the loop as far as hardware/software goes.


Here is what I have now:

GA-E7AUM-DS2H (IGP Nvidia 9400M)

E5200

2Gb Corsair XMS

430w Antec TruePower PSU

Ceton InfiniTV 4

32 Gb SSD for OS

3Gb WD Purple for TV recordings and movie storage


Extras: Nvidia GT620 1Gb from a recently gutted Dell.


So here is my question, do I need to upgrade anything? Am I missing out on any features that cropped up in the last couple of years that would warrant an upgrade to lets say a Haswell? Now, so far it really hasn't had problems with anything playback-wise, except for Xfinity web player because it refuses to use the GFX card and relies on the CPU instead which can't hack the HD content. So it does what I need it to do, but is there anything else out there that would improve the movie-watching experience that I should be looking for that may require updated hardware? Kinda hard to know what you want when you don't know what's out there.


Or does this fall into the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" category?

 

[JackDiesel14]

With a TV like the 4K P series I would consider building a good enough HTPC to take advantage of the 4k. You won't be able to yet because no GPU has HDMI 2.0 but when they do come out all you have to do is drop it in and you're good to go.

 

[Shape of Grey]



Quote:
Originally Posted by JackDiesel14  /t/1523945/time-to-upgrade#post_24520179


With a TV like the 4K P series I would consider building a good enough HTPC to take advantage of the 4k. You won't be able to yet because no GPU has HDMI 2.0 but when they do come out all you have to do is drop it in and you're good to go.

I thought about 4K, however, I really don't think 4K is going to pick up a lot of steam for at least another year and the fact that X1000 doesn't do 4k passthrough I don't think I'll be looking at 4K for now. So it looks like I can probably get another year, at least, out of this HTPC. I was looking into MadVR, but honestly unless I messed something up during setup, I don't see any improvement in PQ so I'm not sure whats all the buzz about (tried it on my PC with a 290X). Or maybe I'm blind lol.

 

[ES_Revenge]

Wait I thought most current cards (like AMD 7xxx and newer) could support 4K but only at 24 or 30Hz? Then again I guess movies in 4K will probably be using 48fps (?) though.