HTPC with AMD APU trinity A10?

[JJG1]

Hi , I am getting a media center PC called ARCTIC MC101 with this latest AMD APU trinity A10, wondering if this is good ?

[jman98]

The A10 is cutting edge technology from AMD. It's not their fastest or most powerful offering but it should easily meet your needs. Early reviews on various hardware sites are positive for the A10.

[jagabo]

My HTPC is currently running an AMD x2 255 CPU on a motherboard with AMD 785G integrated graphics (Radeon HD 4200). That's far less powerful than your A10 based system and it runs Windows Media Center (Win 7) just fine with HD video.

[dj4monie]

I just rebuilt my HTPC around A6-3500 Triple Core. ASRock A75M motherboard has been a problem child however. I don't recommend them at this point since the first board I got was DOA and the second one has NIC issues. I am waiting to hear back from ASRock as to my options. If I can send it back (again) for an RMA, I think I will opt for Gigabyte like my old board, it depends on what options are left to me.

Anyway other than that, it works fine. I haven't had a chance to test USB 3.0 but it does charge up my cell phone faster than USB 2.0 ports. I plan on keeping my W7/W8 disc on USB 3.0 drives however for faster boot up. I also have an OCZ 60GB SSD with has the OS on it.

Much faster than my AMD "Brisbane" Black Edition (5000+) @ 2.9Ghz (yes OC'ed). I don't have to run a video card, then again, I didn't have to anyway, but Flash isn't supported by old 690 chipset. Used to thermal cycle my machine watching stuff on Hulu... I got a HD4670 to solve that problem and do a bit of gaming.

You'll be happy with Trinity it will be faster than my Llano but being a HTPC I wasn't concerned about speed. I'll be building a SFF workstation to do much of the ripping and encoding of files using Trinity, low power quad core APU.

[JJG1]

Thanks guys, seemslike the Trinity A10 is enough for me, they said is good for gamingtoo....think my son will love that..

dj4monie---> thanks for letting me know about ASrock one is not good, I waslooking at theirs as well...I don't know much about graphic card but its sayits HD7660G...not sure if that mean anything to you, is that good? I guess ifyou say Trinity is enough I will go for it..

I think I am also gona go for 8GB RAM in this case, coz it's only 30 USD more,and think it will be much faster than 4GB...

cheers all!

[usually_quiet]

Thanks guys, seemslike the Trinity A10 is enough for me, they said is good for gamingtoo....think my son will love that..

dj4monie---> thanks for letting me know about ASrock one is not good, I waslooking at theirs as well...I don't know much about graphic card but its sayits HD7660G...not sure if that mean anything to you, is that good? I guess ifyou say Trinity is enough I will go for it..

I think I am also gona go for 8GB RAM in this case, coz it's only 30 USD more,and think it will be much faster than 4GB...

cheers all!

8GB won't be any faster unless you have one or more computer programs running that use up all 4GB between them. The A10 in the new Arctic HTPC is intended for laptops, and the case doesn't provide much airflow for cooling. Your son can play some games, but he should not expect to be able to play cutting-edge games at maximum settings with your new HTPC.

[redwudz]

My HTPC is running a 65W three core AMD A6-3500 APU on a Gigabyte A75M-D2H Motherboard. Everything at stock settings. It handles Blue-rays from a BD-ROM drive and HD MKVs with no problems. Best of all, it runs very cool with the 65W chipset. And that's a good thing with HTPCs that may not have the best airflow or cooling.

With W7, it shows a 6.2 Windows Experience Index, very good for integrated graphics. Graphics by itself is a solid 6.6. The 2.1 Ghz CPU speed brings down the overall rating, but the CPU does run 33C at idle and 36C under 100% load. And it's basically silent using a stock AMD cooler. And that's also a good thing for a HTPC.

If you are running a 32 bit OS, adding more that 4 GB of RAM is just a waste of money. 32 bit systems can't use it.

[dj4monie]

Right Redwudz, I have mine set to keep it under 30c and never goes over that and never speeds up the fans (it has control) I get 6.6 for Graphics as well and 6.2 for overall. SSD makes it 7.1... The Frame buffer can be increased to 1GB as some have done, stock is 256MB. The HD6530 is good enough even for modern games with the detail and resolution turned down a bit. I have a standard HDTV so playing games at say 1280x720 is not an issue and will still look great with a majority of games. I may load Race Driver GRID and Race '07 to use with a Xbox 360 Controller for Windows, since it works with it by default and I don't like setting up wheels (though I have one with pedals).

The fact that you don't need a video card to play most games well enough (30fps) is true step forward from chipset based solutions. If you want some more grunt add a HD6670, combined it becomes a HD6690, which is very close to HD67xx performance which is considered a good mid-range video card.

I have 1 PCex1 slot and my x16 slot, I am going to get the Hauppage Colossus and finally switch to DireTV HD soon, I may stick a low profile HD6670 card in there for sh*ts and giggles.

[[_chef_]]

Hi , I am getting a media center PC called ARCTIC MC101 with this latest AMD APU trinity A10, wondering if this is good ?

What sense does that make, "getting something" and THEN asking if its good or not?!


LOL!!