Assisted HD with a Sempron?

[Funkstar]

Can a Sempron manage HD decoding while being assisted with a graphics card?

Going to built a HTPC type thing for my bedroom with a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H in a Silverstone LC19 Case. Obviously I want to keep the thermal output and power requirments down, especailly as I'll need a low profile cooler for that case, I also don't want to fill it with 40mm fans as they are annoying.

Thoughts?

Also tempted to replace the motherboard in the HTP in my living room with one of these. Then I just need a screen and some content for HD

[maverick77_uk]

Hi there,

Thinking a good read for you would be:

AMD's New 780G Chipset : AMD 780G Chipset- Full-HD Playback with a Sempron

In it, they get smooth HD playback with a Sempron 64 3200 and the new 780G chipset from AMD(which your MoBo will use) with an integrated HD3200 chip. Can also do hybrid crossfire too, so by chucking in a cheap HD3450 passively cooled, you'll definitely have enough juice to run HD while not heating up your room too much!

[Funkstar]

Thanks for that.

I already read a review over on Bit-Tech, but this is good stuff too.


EDIT:
Interesting article that. I've not looked at TomsHardware for years now, and actually although there is good stuff in there, there are also inconsistancies and some confusing points too.

There are a couple of good graphs of CPU utilisation and power consumption. Looks like the BE-2350 is actually the sweet spot. Using PowerDVD for HD playback utilises the onboard acceleration as well as using the multiple cores. With this configuration you are looking at only 23% CPU usage.