AMD Radeon HD 6450

[Qaridarium]

Then as before, if it is so heavy then why is it not used as a benchmark on any review site I've ever seen? It sounds like it would actually be a perfect candidate.

if you search for it there are benchmarks with arma2...

but hey its not the most popular game.

but its the game with the most hardware hunger!

[DanL]

Meh, it sucks even for an HTPC, better to go with the A series chips so you can at least play...

I guess your definition of an HTPC differs from mine, because I see HTPC's as low power stuff focused on playing audio/video, and not really used for gaming.

[smitty3268]

I guess your definition of an HTPC differs from mine, because I see HTPC's as low power stuff focused on playing audio/video, and not really used for gaming.

Yes, and while an A-series may be powerful enough for a lot of HTPC's, a lot of people expect them to be able to do realtime transcoding. That can require a faster CPU than you get with the A-series, especially if you are expecting it to serve multiple streams across a household.

[Kivada]

if you search for it there are benchmarks with arma2...

but hey its not the most popular game.

but its the game with the most hardware hunger!

So teh google no real review/benchmark site using it, 1 off youtube and forum posts don't count. But I did fid this little nugget http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1575096 So apparently it's a horrible buggy turd with schizophrenic artists running the gamut of 8-bit to Pixar level CGI detail at the same time...

[Kivada]

I guess your definition of an HTPC differs from mine, because I see HTPC's as low power stuff focused on playing audio/video, and not really used for gaming.

Simple, you can repurpose any machine in the last 10 YEARS to be a dumb playback console, hell, you'd be better served with an old Tivo, but if you want to do more then just watch TV you need something more.

If dumb, low power and cheap are what you want then get a $35 Raspberry Pi when they come out http://www.raspberrypi.org/?p=152 For everything else theres the A8-3850 w/ huge fanless block, 4-8Gb of 2.4Ghz ram, an SSD, a Seasonic X series fanless 90% of the time PSU and maybe some super quiet 800 or 1200RPM 120mm fluid bearing fans. I'll still be damn quiet, if not completely silent, just kick the video in from ye olde backup server. Hell get a Gigabyte UD4 mobo and be able to charge your phone off it when it's off as well.

So yes, I'd rather have the PC in the Home Theater instead of just a dumb video console.

[Kivada]

Yes, and while an A-series may be powerful enough for a lot of HTPC's, a lot of people expect them to be able to do realtime transcoding. That can require a faster CPU than you get with the A-series, especially if you are expecting it to serve multiple streams across a household.

Yea, it'll be a different story if AMD holds to their claim of spinning out the UDV hardware in a way that they can allow the OSS drivers to make use of it, the GPU transcoding in windows is pretty good already.

[BlueJayofEvil]

Though I will say, why was there no Eyefinity6 version of the HD6970?

Does this count? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121430

[Kivada]

Does this count? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121430

Close, but not quite, that beast takes up 3 slots, the Eyefinity6 cards only needed the 2, and could be a single slot card if you put a full coverage water block on it.

[chithanh]

There is the 6870 Eyefinity6
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131447

[Kivada]

There is the 6870 Eyefinity6
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131447

The HD*870 seris is no longer top end, the HD6 series bumped the top end single GPU card to the HD6970, if you're gonna push 6 screens off one GPU something tells me you want all the grunt you can get.