AMD vs Intel mini-itx for plex?

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The lady friend has noticed my internet browsing, and is going to buy me this for xmas:
Lian Li PC-Q07

I've always wanted to do an itx system, and I'd like this one to primarily run Plex Media Server for the other front ends in the house (2 mac minis) and run the Plex client for watching TV in the home office. Most of my hardware is a little old school, so I'm still running everything through VGA or DVI and the audio is just regular stereo. 1080p and Blu-ray are not a huge concerns for me, I'm a long ways off from that kind of peripheral upgrade.

I've priced out a couple of systems on newegg, and it seems like the low-endish mobos and cpus for AMD and Intel come out to about the same price. Here's the units I've been spitballing with:
Intel mobo
Intel CPU
AMD mobo
AMD CPU

I figure either of these systems will work for a while with what I want to do, and they cost around the same...so, is there any notable advantage for going with Intel versus AMD here? I've looked around for some comparisons, but those look at fancy options that I'm just not going to tap into.
My other PCs are AMDs, but I'm not rabid about brands, I just want stability and longevity for $150 or less (for mobo and cpu together). Thoughts?
 
I would defiantly go the socket fm2 route over the fm1 you selected, if you want to go with AMD, as you get a pretty reasonable bump in performance and power consumption on the newer chips: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157340.

However for the best performance and arguably price /performance i would personally go with the I3

If you have a microcenter in the area your best bet would be to get the i3-3220 as they have a bundle deal with $40 off the mobo of your choice so you could get the chip and the gigabyte h61 itx for in the $120 range.

Just take a look at this cpu bench by anandtech http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/676?vs=677, this is comparing the i3 3320 to the higher end a10 5600 not the a4 3300..

The one saving grace of the AMD system is the built in gpu, which if they could get the thermals into the 35w envelope I would be way more for them...
 
Is your network wired or wireless? If you are running wireless you will probably need to transcode the video to a bitrate low enough for wireless. Transcoding on Plex runs much better on Intel CPUs than AMD, though you probably want an i5 if you want to transcode 1080p. If you are running wired, it really won't matter what CPU/MB you use, since you can use DirectPlay.
 
an xbmc developer recomended intel cpu and nvidia gpu as the most capable. they like atom+nvidia gt520/610 because the other options for small systems are underpowered or underfeatured. I think the same goes for everything up until amd trinity, which I'm not sure about, though I know it is not super appropriate because of the high power inefficiency
 
He is building a Plex Media Server. For Plex Media Server the GPU is not utilized.

bAMtan2 said:
an xbmc developer recomended intel cpu and nvidia gpu as the most capable. they like atom+nvidia gt520/610 because the other options for small systems are underpowered or underfeatured. I think the same goes for everything up until amd trinity, which I'm not sure about, though I know it is not super appropriate because of the high power inefficiency
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the thoughts guys, it's been a while since I've built a new system for myself, so I've been out of the hardware loop.

My network is wired, and 1080p isn't a concern for me at this point, which is why I've been trying to figure out if there's any real difference between platforms. I might just see what I can get the better deal on, maybe check out that microcenter deal when I'm in MA next week, thanks for the tip rhansen.
 
Particleman said:
Is your network wired or wireless? If you are running wireless you will probably need to transcode the video to a bitrate low enough for wireless. Transcoding on Plex runs much better on Intel CPUs than AMD, though you probably want an i5 if you want to transcode 1080p. If you are running wired, it really won't matter what CPU/MB you use, since you can use DirectPlay.
Click to expand...

wireless G typical throughput is about 15-18Mbps. good enough for anything except a stream copy blu ray rip.

i do Blu ray off wireless with N with no issues.

if you are having issues, with 10 Mbps videos on G (remember thats about 9-10 gigs per 2 hour movie) you have issues with your network, range is too far, your server/NAS is slow, or the playback device doesnt know how to buffer properly.
 
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