Finally got an excuse to buy a Bulldozer CPU and HD7xxx GPU. Built a Home Theater PC (HTPC).

As usual, a verbose description of how it turned out. Maybe some parts will be of interest to folks like cjcrank who are looking for a new system.

System and delivered prices (used a lot of spare/leftover/experimental parts to keep it cheap – I give original price of spare parts all bought on sales):

CPU: FX-4100 4 core Bulldozer $100
Cooler: CoolerMaster 212 Spare part – $20
GPU: HD7750 (ASUS brand) $117
DRAM: 8GB DDR3 1600 Patriot $33
MB: ASRock 890GX Pro 3 UEFI AM3+ Spare part – $110
HD: Seagate 1TB 7200.12 Spare part – $60
OptD: LG BluRay player, DVD burner $40
PSU: PCP&C 750W Silencer (overkill) Spare part – $70
WiFi: Rosewill PCIe card Spare part – $15
Case: Antec 300 gamer case Spare part – $50
KB/Mouse: Microsoft Wireless Spare part – $45
Remote: Firefly Model R1000 Spare part – free

Total New $290
Grand Total $660 (including spare parts)

A spare copy of Windows 7 Upgrade originally $50 $710

Not a bad HTPC for the extra cost I paid – made affordable by using left over stuff. A hi-end gamer system would upgrade to FX8120 for $90 more and upgrade to HD7950 for $330 more (today – but these not on Sale today smile ). Thus a hi-end AMD Eyefinity capable gamer system based on the same parts bought all new on sale = total price probably under $1129. Personally, for hi-end system, I recommend ASUS or Gigabyte 990FX MB – a cheap one – have one of each in the house installed in Phenom II X6 systems smile

NOTES:

In practice, the Antek 300 case turned out better than I thought at first glance. I bought it on sale a while back, opened the box, and didn't like what I found. However, that was a too-hasty conclusion. Its well laid out. Thumb screws (for almost everything) are easy to use – virtually tool-less. Its fine for an HTPC or small gaming computer. However, the small fans are audible if they have to move a lot of air. Moreover, extra fans bring the price up. And, its a bit on the small side overall (good for HTPC). Still prefer HAF922 on super sale for an all-out gaming rig.

Used huey-Pro color calibrator. So, color/contrast balance is excellent. Best TV picture we've had. An advantage of HTPC (vs standard stand-alone HDTV) is the ability to use a color calibrator. With calibrated colors and HD7750, the 54” Panasonic plasma makes a very good computer monitor for day to day – even at closer distances – which it did not in my previous experiments.

Only need 300 to 400W PSU. But what I had “in stock” was a spare 750W CrossFire ready unit (taken out of my gaming system of a couple years ago).

Had to flash ASRock BIOS to get it to work. Used their procedure which FAILED. Needed to buy a new BIOS chip for $15 delivered – no hassle otherwise. In the future, I'll stick with ASUS and Gigabyte for the extra few dollars. Gigabyte has dual BIOS – just in case one's flash fails – so no worries.

FX4100 stable OC to 4.5GHz at 1.45V. AMD says one can get 4.6 on 4 cores and 5.0 on 2 cores. I believe that – as there seemed to be something left in the tank. Got 4.9 to POST – accidentally – didn't continue to try and get it stable due to risk to already installed full Windows 7 system and applications software (didn't want to have to reinstall all that). But, who knows – some folks do claim 5GHz for 8 Bulldozer cores on air. Anyhow, FX4100 is a “defective” FX81xx with 4 cores fused off – so, mine did well.

After experimenting with the high OC, I set FX4100 to 4.14GHz 1.4V and enabled Cool-n-Quiet for 24/7/365 HTPC use. Very conservative “day in day out” OC that should not cause “aging” of the CPU.

ASUS HD7750 stock clock 1GB GDDR5 graphics memory. The new AMD GPUs are great at Tessellation and Compute skills. Even this little one ran Heaven 2.5 benchmark smoothly at 1920x1080. Min visual FPS was about 20. 3DMark11 ran well but FPS not smooth enough (as expected with this 512 shader low-clocked card). Overall, HD7750 outperforms HD5770 and HD6770 in DX11 games according to on-line reviews.

FX4100 at 4.14GHz, Skyrim at 1920x1080, all in-game graphics maxed (except 0AA and 8AF), all Bethesda and 3d party “mega” textures installed: System gave over 20FPS minimum even in the slowest parts. No stutters or hesitations. Extremely playable with no down-side. Skyrim is CPU limited. Got the same performance after disabling 2 cores (i.e. ran Skyrim on 2 core CPU as an experiment). So, I conclude that the FX4100 can actually do the CPU job for most games – as most games use 2 or less cores. Don't recommend it though. Considering the total cost of a gamer system, go FX8120 – or FX8150 to hit the max possible OC.

Found a great OC article for AMD Bulldozer fans. Best single OC “how to” I've personally read:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1140459/bulld...-results-coming

Found Prime95 can be flaky as a Bulldozer stress test during OC procedure. Learned about “Intel Burn Test” in above article and used it for stress testing. Claims to be a tougher test than Prime95 (don't know if that's true). Final OC also tested with Prime95 for 3 hours.

The HTPC performs its function. I'll say a bit more for anyone interested in HTPC (don't claim to be an expert).

We use a Ceton InfiniTV PCIe tuner card (~$250 on sale). It has 4 tuners that can be used independently to watch and/or record 4 HDTV cable channels at once. It uses a “cable card” which costs just under $3 a month to rent. That's the total added cost of using the Ceton tuner. We have Time/Warner cable which does not charge per TV so is economical for a house with 6 TVs plus several computers that can be used to watch TV. We only have one “set top box” at $11 a month (“premium” channels included in price) and the Ceton tuner at $3 (which also includes premium channels) to cover “everything” (of course, we pay a base rate of around $60 in addition).

The Ceton tuner self-integrates “seamlessly” with Windows 7 Media Center – and is used via Media Center. A show recorded on one computer can be watched on any other computer or HTPC in the house. Media Center manages the recorded video sharing transparently – just go to Media Center recorded video page that lists all the recordings on all the computers in the house – then click to watch any one you want regardless of where it is. Exception, some DRMd shows need to be watched on the recording computer – which is why we spread the tuner “assignments” around. The 4 Ceton tuners are independently “assignable” to any computer on the home LAN. My wife has 2 assigned to her office computer (she likes to do fun-work and watch TV, records a couple shows a day). I have one tuner assigned to my gaming rig (in my office) – tuner rarely used. One tuner assigned to the new HTPC which is used with a Panasonic 54” plasma 1920x1080 – will be recording daily.

“Old” Firefly remote works well with fresh software download. Integrates “automatically/seamlessly” with Media Center. Also operates PC mouse, etc. Still selling one that looks like this one I got for free (with some other items).

The total HTPC system works for cable HDTV, movie disks, and, apparently, for games.

In summary, FX4100 can actually be a gaming CPU on a budget – but needs OC. HD7750 is a real step up in an inexpensive GPU. Ceton “cable card” 4 channel Tuner works with Windows Media Center “seamlessly and transparently” across many computers on a LAN.

Well, there it is – verbose as usual. A few facts and thoughts about my HTPC build. Hopefully, some of them will be of interest to Gamers considering a new system.


Here's the obligatory photo of the insides.




Here is the HTPC in our TV room -- on top of the far right side of the cabinet (watching Golf Channel via Ceton tuner). Setup also includes: Hi-fidelity 7.1 surround with Polk speakers (surround speakers are 8" woofer) sounds as good/loud as theater, a Wii gaming system, and other stuff expected in a TV room. My wife and I and Grandkids use this room (guests are entertained elsewhere).




Sapphire Pulse RX7900XTX, 3 monitors = 23P (1080p) + SAMSUNG 32" Odyssey Neo G7 1000R curve (4K/2160p) + 23P (1080p), AMD R9-7950X (ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 420), 64GB RAM@6.0GHz, Gigabyte X670E AORUS MASTER MB, (4x M.2 SSD + 2xSSD + 2xHD) = ~52TB storage, EVGA 1600W PSU, Phanteks Enthoo Pro Full Tower, ASUS RT-AX89X 6000Mbps WiFi router, VKB Gladiator WW2 Stick, Pedals, G.Skill RGB KB, AORUS Thunder M7 Mouse, W11 Pro