What are some good OEM SFFs as HTPCs?

I was given an old Dell Optiplex SX270. The previous owner said it wouldn't turn on. Turned out it had a couple of bad caps on the motherboard, $3 later I had an awesome SFF running great.

I put 2gb DDR + Pentium 4 3.40GHZ/1M/800 SL7E6 with a 320gb SATA drive. This puppy screams. I can play 720p MKVs virtually fine (no go for 1080p). I've only run into a couple of problems, most of which were fixable after an immense amount of research. The integrated Intel GMA910 won't support Vista/7 Aero, so the UI is kind of crappy.


Anyway, I'd like to find a decently priced/used OEM small form factor pc similar to what I have, but maybe with upgradable graphics.

I've found the Dell GX270 has a free AGP slot, and the GX280 has a 16x PCI Express slot.

What do you guys think about that? Having a half-height graphics card with a p4/3.4, 2gb ram ? Would that be able to do 1080p mkvs?

Thanks!

Optiplex 740

also, it seems the ATi 4550 seems to be the best low profile/low power card for 1080p .. is that right?
Does it have audio/digital audio passthrough?

If you don't have a PCI express 16 slot that thing is nogo as an HTPC as AGP video cards seem to be unable to accelerate video. So you cant underclock..

Rip the mobo and CPU out and go with a new build using that case and power supply

Zachstar said:

If you don't have a PCI express 16 slot that thing is nogo as an HTPC as AGP video cards seem to be unable to accelerate video. So you cant underclock..

Rip the mobo and CPU out and go with a new build using that case and power supply

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Make sure the PSU and mobo aren't proprietary. Dell use to really love using specially wired PSUs with their mobos.

But yeah, rip out that crappy P4 and use something that's at least decent for an HTPC. The P4 was the worst possible choice for an HTPC (except a Northwood) and, yeah, AGP cards can't full accelerate 1080p content since they tend to have a broken video decoder.

CrimandEvil said:

But yeah, rip out that crappy P4 and use something that's at least decent for an HTPC. The P4 was the worst possible choice for an HTPC (except a Northwood)

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Ah! It's the infamous CrimandEvil ! Glad to see you're still around! I remember you helping me waaaaaaaaaay back a few years ago.

Why would you say the P4 is a bad choice for HTPC? Does it get hot, or suck up a lot of power? The P4 I'm using is hyperthreaded if that makes any difference ?? ...

I'm trading someone an external hard drive for a Dell GX280 which has a PCI express slot, so I'll throw an ati HD 4550 in it...

Would MPC + CoreAVC still be the best solution for HD MKV's?

The issue when it comes to P4 was the mindset at the time was "Gigahertz for teh win!" and "Screw the power requirements"

Coal was cheap oil was cheap and bigger was king back then. It was before the climate movement took off.

As a result it runs LOUD and HOT. The good news if you can get a PCI express based 4550 in there and use MPC HC (CoreAVC does not take advantage of ATI based products yet) You can underclock that thing to get it to cool down.