Legit Reviews

Why is Micro Center selling 930's for $199, **** that is a good deal and its in stock locally too. I just need it to hold that price till payday in a week! So they can get you inside the store and sell you the motherboard, GPU, etc for a healthier profit. Don't sweat the price of the i7-930. I thin...

why not get 2x 2x2GB, 8GB dual channel, $200-220 +1. You don't really need to get 2x4GB modules. Just find a motherboard with at least 4 RAM slots. The 875k isn't necessarily a better processor, its just a bit faster out of the box. I would really like to see a clock to clock comparison of the 930 ...

Kaos Kid wrote:XBMC? Is that Xbox Media Center? Does that work with a PC?

Yep. They actually cut off support for the original Xbox recently.

Finally! Used the original beta for a couple of days but it kept crashing Hulu Desktop so I uninstalled it. Been meaning to install one of the RC versions but never got around to it.

Another recommendation for Windows 7 OS. I personally use WMC+Media Browser but if you don't want TV recording, you might want to consider XBMC.

Not sure about BD-R but retail Blu-ray video discs are pretty resilient due to the hard coating. I don't think I've even seen one with a scratch from Netflix.

Kurotetsu wrote:As for the Zotac GF9300, that might be something to consider. Though that board has a pretty big chipset heatsink, could that fit into an mITX case like the one the OP used?

The chipset heatsink, sure. If you're installing an optical drive, though, I'm not so sure about the CPU HSF.

Major_A wrote:Why not take it back to Frys?

I'm already past 15 days. They've got a really short return period for motherboards and processors.

I've always wanted to DIY an HTPC to stream stuff from my PC, though the overall always scared me off. I wonder, how does Atom + Ion compare to Atom + Broadcom Crystal HD? I figure the savings gained from not going with an Ion chipset might make it more enticing, but is playback performance affecte...

Motherboard's really dead. Placed an RMA request on MSI's website. Spent the better part of the day working the Intel build. It's not exactly Clarkdale, though. :roll: I have a Lynnfield chip that's going to be used for a mini-workstation build and I figured I'll use it temporarily while I'm waiting...

Thanks for all the tips. I have a known working Corsair PSU and bought an AMD Sempron 140 just to eliminate the CPU as culprit altogether. I should be able to find time to work on the build (and a new Clarkdale-based one) tomorrow. After that, it's RMA time.

skier wrote:standard ATX

Good to know. For some reason, to me it looked bigger than standard ATX.

If it was me, I would continue saving until I could buy a new pc, or replace the mobo and cpu both. +1. @jiggy65 Your system's still pretty decent albeit showing signs of age. You're unlikely to notice any noticeable improvement with just upgrading the CPU. Better off waiting a bit until you can do...

Best onboard video I've seen. Seriously, though, they should've at least included some form of video out. Curious, what form factor is this?

video encoding/compression etc.: Phenom II X6 1055T gaming & general use: Phenom II X4 965 the extra cores don't help except in certain scenarios like benchmarks video editing and video compression, for all around use the X4 is better given the 600MHz higher stock frequency +1. Video encoding 1...

If it's messed up in the BIOS report it to Zotac and see what they say. They might fix it but then again they might not. Worth a shot though. It's been reported since the board was first released. They still haven't done anything about it and I doubt they ever will. Heck, even now, fan speed contro...

Kaos Kid wrote:Since you have this board, how accurate are the claims of Blu-ray decoding over the hdmi?

1080p Blu-ray works just fine but considering you can get a GF9300-G-E + Celeron E3300 for less than this costs, it doesn't really make much sense anymore. The E3300 also makes for a snappier WMC interface.

Kaos Kid wrote: Sweeeet!!!

Was that in reference to the article or the booth babe?

The system is not a speed demon by no means but it will feel like a Ferrari to the guys getting it. Not for gaming (depending on resolution, details and GPU set-up) and particularly CPU-intensive tasks. However, doing normal stuff - web browsing, etc, I highly doubt anyone will notice any differenc...

Ooh... Me likey. Does this mean we'll have both high end and mid-range Sandy Bridge chips at launch?