Recommendations as at July 2013

Intel I3-3225 CPU

This is almost the cheapest current generation Intel Ivybridge processor.  The i3-3220 is around $10 cheaper but only comes with HD2500 onboard video, so it is worth it to spend the extra for the I3-3225 which comes with the faster HD4000 onboard video.  As explained earlier integrated GPU performance also depends on speed of access to the memory (RAM), so we recommend you pair the i3-3225 with 2x Dual Channel DDR3 1600 or DDR3 1866 ram. Most users will buy 2x2GB or 2x4GB.  The brand of ram does not need to be expensive you can use the lowest price RAM available.  The AMD CPUs (eg. A6-5400K) are better value for money, but they both should be adequate for MediaPortal.

Intel HD Graphics

The Intel HD Graphics, HD2000 Graphics and HD3000 Graphics were introduced in January 2011 onboard the Intel Sandy bridge CPUs.  There is a performance difference between the chips with HD and HD2000 having 6 execution units and HD3000 having 12 execution units.

The slower HD Graphics and HD Graphics 2000 can struggle with decoding Full HD interlaced video, this type of video is present on some HD broadcasts, if you want to use mediaportal with 1080i you need atleast an HD Graphics 2500 or faster.  While the HD2500 also has only 6 execution units it can outperform the 2nd generation HD3000 due to the faster clock speeds in the 3rd generation chips.

If you want to know what type of integrated graphics chip is included with the Intel CPU you are considering then visit - http://ark.intel.com/

Article: Intel's IvyBridge an HTPC Perspective

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5773/i...pc-perspective