AnandTech have a roundup of the current options for discrete HTPC cards, looking at what benefits they bring over integrated graphics and where they still need to improve.

“The popularity of Intel’s HD Graphics amongst HTPC enthusiasts and the success of the AMD APUs seem to indicate that the days of the discrete HTPC GPU are numbered. However, for those with legacy systems, a discrete HTPC GPU will probably be the only way to enable hardware accelerated HD playback. In the meanwhile, discrete HTPC GPUs also aim to offer more video post processing capabilities.”

We recommend you check it out here.

No tags

Last year we looked at the Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 and postulated whether with its 400 shaders and half-height form factor it was fast enough to build a half-height HTPC that could rival the consoles for gaming performance.

Now however AMD have unleashed their latest ‘Northern Island’ based parts, the Radeon HD 6570 and 6670 – upping the number of shaders to 480 and Texture Units to 24 (from 20) while still both being half-height cards.

Anandtech have a full review which we recommend you check out if you’re interested in gaming on your HTPC….

6570 · 6670 · AMD · Anandtech · ATI · Gaming · Home Theatre PC · HTPC · Radeon

SilentPC Review have a, errrr, review of the Zotac H67-ITX, an ITX board for Intel’s latest generation Sandy Bridge processors, complete with built in WiFi.

With an impressive feature set this could be the ideal board for a high-end HTPC build. You can read the full review here.

H67 · Intel · ITX · Sandy Bridge · SFF · WiFi · Zotac

Integrated graphics solutions have made some strong gains in performance lately, closing the gap to the Radeon HD 5450 both in terms of gaming performance and media features.

To attempt to redress the balance AMD have launched the Radeon HD 6450, featuring the new Caico GPU and more than doubling up the memory bandwidth and shader performance compared to the older card. For the first time AMD’s entry-level card also has the full UVD3 video decode engine for post-processing effects and 3D, as well as DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a support.

So is this the perfect HTPC card? You can read the full review over at Anandtech….

3D · 6450 · AMD · Anandtech · HDMI 1.4a · Radeon HD · Review · UVD3

Small Atom based Nettops are two a penny these days, but few are as sleek and stylish as the new Sapphire Edge-HD Mini PC.

Techpowerup have a full review on their site.

Edge-HD · Ion 2 · Sapphire · SFF

Many people have contacted me to let me know that Media Center Studio, which we had previously previously produced an article and video guide for, no longer worked after a Windows Update made by Microsoft.

Fortunately the enterprising users of The Green Button Forum were able to track down the problem and produce a fix, which you can find in the forum thread here.

To ensure Media Center Studio continues to work even with future updates it is a good idea to place a shortcut to the application in your system start-up, ensuring the fix is carried out each time your system is started before Media Center loads.

fix · media center studio · patch · Update

techPowerUp have taken a look at the HIS Radeon HD 5450, younger brother to the Radeon HD 5570 we reviewed recently.

While the 5450 may be lacking in gaming performance in some cases less is more.

AMD · ATI · Radeon · Review · techPowerUp

We have updated the device switching tool from our Xonar article, renaming it to Auto Output Device Switcher and adding a configuration tool.

You can find it in our article.

ASUS · Auto Output Device Switcher · Update · Updates · Xonar

The Tech Report have taken a look at four small H55 motherboards, including the Zotac H55 ITX.

Some interesting information in it, particularly in terms of power consumption.

Core i3 · H55 · Intel · ITX · mATX · Motherboard

When we took a look at the Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 recently we also mulled over the usage of the Home Theatre as a gaming platform in general. One area which we didn’t touch upon in that piece which has proved a weakness for some – audio.

For most gamers this isn’t a big issue, surround sound devices are connected by multiple stereo audio jacks or in the case of some headphones, USB. But with a Home Theatre set up there’s a good chance you’ll want to connect your system to a separate receiver over TOSLINK or Coaxial S/PDIF – this is where problems can arise.

So today we’ve taken a look at the ASUS Xonar DX, how it deals with surround sound gaming over S/PDIF connections, the problems its approach cause, and our very own makeshift solution. Read on to find out more…..

ASUS · Dolby Digital · Dolby Digital Live · DTS · Gaming · MCE · Xonar DX