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.

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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

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

Apologies for the lack of updates over the last week, work and life took priority for a few days.

We have however used the time to get another article ready, a review of the Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 and a look into whether it can turn the HTPC into a competitive gaming system.

Please check it out and we’d love to hear your thoughts.

5570 · Articles · ATI · Gaming · HD 5570 · Home Theatre PC · HTPC · Radeon · Review

OCZ have announced a new addition to their ever expanding range of SSD drives, the OCZ Onyx.

Read and write speeds come in at a mediocre 125MB/sec and 70MB/sec respectively, and with just 32GB of space its you aren’t going to be recording hours of high-definition TV to it, but with support for TRIM under Windows 7, SSD’s characteristically rapid seek times, and zero noise this drive has the potential to make a great operating system drive for a HTPC when backed up with some mechanical mass storage.

Prices are expected to be under the $100 mark in the US which should see it competing with OCZ’s own Solid 2 series drives and Intel’s 40GB X25-V.

HTPC · OCZ · Silent · SSD

We reported on the launch of Shuttle’s SG41J1 a couple weeks ago, and now Fudzilla brings news from CeBIT of the rest of the J-series line.

It looks as if Shuttle will be offering each system, the G41 SG41J1, H55 based SH55J2, and range topping X58 equipped SX58J3 as both barebone chassis’s and complete systems – with the SX58J3 based J3 5800P adding in a Core i7 920, 4GB DDR3-1066 and a Radeon HD 5770 to make a pretty powerful little system.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see how Shuttle’s pricing compares to previous generation XPC’s as these have the potential to be kick-ass HTPC or gaming systems!

Core 2 · Core i3 · Core i7 · Gaming · HTPC · Radeon · SFF · Shuttle · XPC

The Tech Report have uncovered more information on the Zotac Zbox HD-ID11, stating that it should be available either late March or early April, with a price of $239.99, not $209.99 as previously reported.

Atom · ION2 · SFF · Zotac

A pair of interesting small form factor system reviews have caught our eye today.

First up Testfreaks take a look at the Puget Echo I, an Atom and Ion based system aimed at the HTPC market.

Next Hot Hardware have the Dell Inspiron Zino HD, which combines a low power Athlon X2 with a very attractive price tag, but limited expansion options.

If you’re in the market for a small, pre-built HTPC system be sure to check them out.

Athlon X2 · Atom · Home Theatre PC · HTPC · SFF