GIGABYTE GA-E350N AMD E-350D APU AMD A45 FCH Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo $59.99 + Free Ship

Mmmmmmm.... good for a Carputer??

Quote from Zuhkov : Fantastic value. I have two E350 mini ITX setups running OpenELEC (http://openelec.tv/), an appliance-like XBMC distro, and they don't break a sweat playing Blu-ray rips over the network. I believe Frys has a pretty regular deal on an MSI E350 board around this price, but that's after MIR, so this is about the best deal I can remember on one of these boards. If folks are interested, I'm happy to recommend additional components to finish out a box.

The MSI board is way better value. It has PCI-E for upgrading a dedicated video card and SATA 6Gb.

Quote from exhurt : I wish Netflix & Silverlight was better optimized. This processor struggles HD Netflix streams even though it can handle Blu-Ray just fine.

I find it hard to believe that this CPU would struggle with netflix when my Roku, Cell phone, Logitech Revue, PS3, Wii and even my sons Nintendo 3DS can stream netflix without a hitch. You know, no transcoding is done on the client end with netflix. I cant see it needing anything more than a CPU capable of playing 24FPS video... Which this obviously can.

Quote from toothpick : I find it hard to believe that this CPU would struggle with netflix when my Roku, Cell phone, Logitech Revue, PS3, Wii and even my sons Nintendo 3DS can stream netflix without a hitch. You know, no transcoding is done on the client end with netflix. I cant see it needing anything more than a CPU capable of playing 24FPS video... Which this obviously can.

I can understand that it's hard to believe until you actually own an E-350 APU. On a fresh install with all the latest drivers, Netflix will still lag every so often when playing HD content.

edit: I Google'd "E-350 Netflix." Here is the link:

https://www.google.com/search?q=e...=firefox-a

I'm debating between building a small server and buying a 2 bay NAS. I really just need the capabilities of a NAS like the synology but this would end up being cheaper. anyone buying this who is in my shoes?

Quote from z9z91 : The MSI board is way better value. It has PCI-E for upgrading a dedicated video card and SATA 6Gb.

Unless you're using it for something other than a HTPC, there's no way you're going to notice the 6Gb/s over 3Gb/s.

Dedicated graphics requires a significantly larger form factor (or a riser card which is not super cheap). If you want better graphics in a small package, you might as well look at one of the regular AMD Fusion APUs and a separate mini ITX board.

Quote from exhurt : I can understand that it's hard to believe until you actually own an E-350 APU. On a fresh install with all the latest drivers, Netflix will still lag every so often when playing HD content. edit: I Google'd "E-350 Netflix." Here is the link: https://www.google.com/search?q=e...=firefox-a

I see there are known problems with Netflix and this CPU. It is a flaw in the Netflix client however. I can assure you, if the 700mhz ARM based Raspberry Pi can handle it, this CPU can. The E-350 has better benchmarks than some older Core 2 Duo's [cpubenchmark.net]

Netflix needs to figure this one out... But I am glad you pointed this out. That kills my hopes of an HTPC based on this... Now I am thinking about building an x86 router with this instead... If only I could find a case <$20

Quote from pmason : I'm debating between building a small server and buying a 2 bay NAS. I really just need the capabilities of a NAS like the synology but this would end up being cheaper. anyone buying this who is in my shoes?

I have an E-350 that I use for a file server.

I looked at the straight up mini NAS enclosures but most only supported 2 drives and cost more than an E-350 setup (I paid about $120 for an E-350 w/4gb DDR3 about a year ago).

I prefer having the E-350 over the NAS because it does give some added features. I have Ubuntu running on it and while 90% of the time it's only used as a File Server i also run anything I need going 24/7 on it. I have an IRC client/script, a small FTP server, etc. If i need to torrent something (legally!) i'll do it from there as it's going to save directly to the file server anyway. I mean at the end of the day a NAS would probably work but given the costs i'm happy having something a bit more robust and expandible.

The downside is an E-350 would also require a case, power supply, etc. and to be on the safe side hooked up to a monitor in case the remote goes down. I just have it hooked into my main monitor on the VGA port and swap over in the rare cases when an update hangs or something. A NAS of course is plug and play in most cases but is a lot less flexible.

Speed wise the E-350 works perfectly for this sort of application, i've never seen it really bog down or anything. I don't having it actually playing media though.. it just hosts the file and the actual playback is handled by a media player.

So all i need for an htpc build is ram, case, hdd and power supply. Then its good to go? Just want to confirm it will stream 1080p/720p from xbmc without any issues? Thanks

Quote from toothpick : I see there are known problems with Netflix and this CPU. It is a flaw in the Netflix client however. I can assure you, if the 700mhz ARM based Raspberry Pi can handle it, this CPU can. The E-350 has better benchmarks than some older Core 2 Duo's [cpubenchmark.net] Netflix needs to figure this one out... But I am glad you pointed this out. That kills my hopes of an HTPC based on this... Now I am thinking about building an x86 router with this instead... If only I could find a case <$20

It has nothing to do with the processor. On a computer netflix does not enable gpu decode for hd while on your phone or 3ds or roku it does. What is really sad is it used to be enabled and you will find old reviews for the acer aspire revo which was a single core atom paired with the ion gpu and in those reviews netlifx works great. Starting with silverlight 4 I believe it was disabled and now it is fully cpu dependent.

I would recommend dual core sb for a low power htpc that can do netflix hd

About to pull the trigger...I'm not streaming from netflix or online video sites, just locally stored media files including MKV's that are 10-15GB's. The built in ATI Video processor is fine for that right? Does it enable the GPU to decode as mentioned above? In the foxconn nettop I have, it uses VDPAU...ATI card does something similar I assume? TIA

Should have mentioned, I'm planning on OpenElec or XBMC as the OS.

Quote from ek9cv5 : So all i need for an htpc build is ram, case, hdd and power supply. Then its good to go? Just want to confirm it will stream 1080p/720p from xbmc without any issues? Thanks

Yep. If you have spare parts, great, if not, you can check my post on page 1 for some ram, case, and psu options. If you use OpenELEC, you don't even need an HDD, just a small flash drive.

Quote from jamesbodden : It has nothing to do with the processor. On a computer netflix does not enable gpu decode for hd while on your phone or 3ds or roku it does. What is really sad is it used to be enabled and you will find old reviews for the acer aspire revo which was a single core atom paired with the ion gpu and in those reviews netlifx works great. Starting with silverlight 4 I believe it was disabled and now it is fully cpu dependent. I would recommend dual core sb for a low power htpc that can do netflix hd

This is pretty spot on. I had the Dell Zino running really well ... until Silverlight 4 was released, then Netflix went from perfect to unwatchable.

My only difference would be to recommend a low end SB proc. I am running the G530 flawlessly in my new setup.

have fun with 10bit x264. lol.