Apologies for this ‘August Upgrades’ post coming a little late in mid September! August became a bit of a whirlwind and before I new it, we were into September and I’d started a new job! Busy, busy times!
Anyway, these are only minor upgrades due to budget this (and last) month, but every little improvement counts and so there’s another, albeit small post to add to the build log. In early Aug, pretty much straight after payday, I picked up a pair of D-Link Powerline Adapters to let us connect the server to the TV downstairs in the living-room where the idea was to have it become more of a HTPC. The other Aug purchase was a Sapphire HD5450 ATI Radeon 1GB DDR3 graphics card. The HD5450’s a basic 1GB card with an all-important HDMI port that offers audio as well as video. This was vital at the time to allow for easy use as a HTPC connected to our TV without having to worry about a separate speaker system for sound. The card copes fantastically with HD content so even BR quality video isn’t an issue. It also copes v nicely with basic gaming and emulators.
After trying this out briefly, we’ve scrapped the idea at least until the server’s had a few more upgrades and is a little more powerful. The power of the graphics card aside, the processing power isn’t all that when it comes to HTPC or light gaming usage. For most people it probaby would be, but alas we like to push our hardware a little err…harder.
For now, instead we’ve made the PS3 wired and gone back to streaming. With both the server wired upstairs and the PS3 wired downstairs via the powerline adapters, we’re now made of WIN! The old issues of the stream occasionally freezing or dropping out altogether even though wifi signal was still present & connected are now gone and Plex Media Server dishes up all our media to ALL devices around the home – it can even cover the iPhones!
Here are a few pics snapped during the upgrade, nothing fancy, but until I get around to any reviewing, this is the most attention the HD5450 will get sadly.
As you can see, the inputs range nicely from basic VGA right the way through to HDMI capable of audio (enabled in your Win sound preferences). The lack of fan for cooling was a deliberate choice as the idea is to keep the rig as quiet as possible. With no heavy usage on the graphics side of things, the heatsink provided is more than enough to do the job.
The rig’s slowly coming together, but there are still a good few updates I’d like to cram in there. If I had the budget, I’d rip out nearly everything and start again with a higher spec, but after reminding myself that thrift, budget and functionality are the main aim of this build, I manage to back away from the cliff-edge of epic spending. Having said that, I’ve updated My Tech with ‘Future Plans/Upgrades’ for each rig to add any plans or wishlist any upgrades I’d like to carry out on each one. Granted they’ll probably never happen, but time will tell I guess!