[Majorhi]

I currently have a tower with an AMD X2 6000+ and 3G DDR2 and a Sapphire 4870 on an ASUS M2R32-MVP in a tower next to my tv. It seems to work ok but it is rather sluggish at times. I've had to switch over to XBMC from Media Browser as it just can't handle it. I have a FX 4100 and 8g of DDR3 laying around but I don't want to break the bank on a mobo to put into the HTPC tower. I also know the FX runs hot and my case isn't wide enough to mount the CM 212 Evo I have lying around.

What I'm needing is some input on how I should go about updating the hardware I have laying around into my HTPC without breaking the bank. Thanks

 

[WOD35]

What do you mean by 'sluggish'? Your CPU is a monster for HTPC duty. You have sufficient ram ( I am guessing 2 1GB sticks and 2 512MB sticks?) so the only other things I would question are your network and your disk drives.

 

[pharcycle]

How fast is your RAM clocked at? Below DDR2-800 (400MHz clock) I had what I would describe as sluggish behaviour - specifically I noticed navigating through the menus of mediaportal was laggy. Above DDR2-800 it was fine. 2GB of faster RAM is going to be better than 3GB of slow RAM for a HTPC and if you're not running Dual Data Rate mode then you'll definitely be crippling your performance.

XBMC is great though, I don't see why moving to it is a bad thing!

First port of call is your memory configuration I'd say

 

[beldecca]

Just to check, are you running it on WIFI or CAT?