htpc build by a noob

Well my old computer had windows vista from when we purchased it and I downloaded the windows 8 update. So wondering if I can transfer it or need to buy a whole new os
 
Depends... Open Box sales tend to have just the motherboard. If you buy the motherboard brand new, it should have 1 or 2 SATA cables, a manual, various accessories for the motherboard such as I/O shield, and that's about it. Rest of the stuff like power button cable is provided by the case, and power leads are provided by the PSU...
 
Was at a mates house today talking about my build and he suggested using intel i5 instead of i3. Is it worth the extra $60?
And there is like 8 different processors, which one will be suitable/ work with my system???
 
Was at a mates house today talking about my build and he suggested using intel i5 instead of i3. Is it worth the extra $60?
And there is like 8 different processors, which one will be suitable/ work with my system???

Link us to the cpu your looking at, honestly if you can afford it and don't mind paying up.
I get the i5 quadcore of a dual core i3, never could stand i3 chips after I owned lga1156. :/
 
An i3 is more than adequate for HTPC and 1080p media playback purposes. My i3-530, one of the lowest end in the i-series, and one of the slowest, did amazingly well for HTPC purposes. Though, an i5 gives you room to play with in the future if you wanted to.
 
You can do practically anything on a Haswell i3. I have a friend with an IB i3 paired with a 2GB 680 and he can play any game and do anything on it. The i5 would just give extra performance in those games that actually use more than 2 cores.
 
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