CPU advice

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marmel

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#30480 10-Feb-2009 09:36

I am in the final stages of building my HTPC. Here is what I have so far:

Silverstone LC-16 case with fanless PSU
Asus 9400GT video card (heatsink only model)
WD 500gb GP hard drive
2gb RAM 1066mhz
Nova-s DVB-s card
Playview Pro 2 tuner card
ASUS P5QLE LGA775 Mobo

I would like to know what CPU I should consider. Apart from HTPC duties I will be using the computer for editing photo's from my DSLR. Sometimes I may batch process a group of photo's which could total 1gb. I'm thinking a dual core chip around 2.5ghz like this

Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz, LGA775

Should I consider spending any extra for something like this

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400, 3.00GHz

I guess there is about $130 difference between the two.

Nety

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#195073 10-Feb-2009 09:57

Do you care how long it takes to do the processing? From the media centre side of things you want the E4500 as it will be cooler. So it comes down to how often you will be processing the photo's and how time critical it is.

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

marmel

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#195076 10-Feb-2009 10:11

Time wise it probably wouldn't matter that much, it won't be very often I would be processing a group of that size, maybe only once or twice a year. Most sets of shots would probably be around 200mb.

I'm wondering though if I should go to a chip with a 1066 fsb to take advantage of the RAM speed I have. There is only about $25 difference between the E4500 2.2ghz and the E7200 2.5ghz 1066fsb.

ajst2duk

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#195086 10-Feb-2009 12:13

Yeah I would, why be left wondering if you could do it a little faster - for $25 its a done deal. Definitely stick with cooler duo chips though, I run a Q6600 in one machine & it's a toaster.