Assassin's Simple/Beginner HTPC Buying Guide - Page 508

Except that you only see the speed benefit when the PC boots in the case of a HTPC. Beyond that you probably won't see a bit of difference in performance between a SSD and a standard drive.

That's over a billion percent inaccurate ^.

You see the speed boost from SSD over HDD everywhere. The faster the SSD the bigger the difference.

A "fast" SSD for an OS is light years better than a HDD at everything.

Opening a browser, a program , populating album art from cache, etc...

I have a pretty darn big music library, 20k songs. When I go from Live TV, to my Music Library the album art is all there. Itis just SSD isn't near as important as some people believe. The music is stored on a drive in my desktop PC not the HTPC or TV Server as I prefer.. There is no delay, the album art display is instaneous.

I am not saying SSDs everywhere won't speed things up. But if there is no discernible delay what difference does being even faster make?

Where I see huge speed gains with SSDs is running anti-virus scans. There is no comparison between a magnetic drive and an SSD in that case.

Seems like i opened a can of worms asking about SSD's

Could someone please answer my last post regarding the case and SSD's as I want to get all my stuff ordered and start building this weekend as i work away and spare time is hard to come by.

Thanks guys and sorry for pushing

You (and only you) need to decided what's "needed."
Roughly, COST-WISE:

256GB SSD = 3TB HDD

128GB SSD = 2TB HDD

If I had an EITHER/OR decision to make, I'd go with the HDD every time.

 

When I started (about this time last year), I didn't think I "needed" an HTPC. Now, I can't imagine being without one. YMMV.

Have fun.

I run my HTPCs as SSD only ...

I use HDDs for storage but on my server.

I think it's best of everything.

Since you can't fit media on SSD of coarse it's less important. It's a luxury. HDD or storage is requirement.

+1

I have a 300+ move library and 250+ tv library. I built my HTPC 1.5+ years ago with a 64GB M4 SSD with the help of Assassin and his guides. It was great, but within a year the SSD was full. I have ZERO games on it, just programs and caches for Plex, Media Browser, and Recorded TV HD. There was also a span when my SSD hit the 5000 hour limit on the older firmware (and I didn't know it just needed a firmware upgrade) so I had to run my HTPC of a mechanical drive for a week. OMG!!!! I though I was guying to die of old age waiting for stuff to load! HUGE difference in opening and closing WMC, MB, Plex etc.
I now moved that 64GB to my laptop, reformatted it and installed Win8 on it. My HTPC now has a 128GB M4 in it which is half full. I have not run any benchmarks but the 128GB "feels" (maybe a hair?) faster

I guess you couldn't find Bilbo?

He did but it was that build version was behaving erratically and the only sound it would produce was a hissing that sounded eerily like someone saying "My Precious"

My half-cent on having a larger SSD (128 or 120 versus 64): As you are building your system and installing software and drivers, I found when I built mine it was much better with a larger SSD. Why? As you are building, if you make a mistake, software doesn't install the way you want, or you want to try software before making everything permanent, having a larger SSD allows for more system restore points. Being able to have more system restore points is a lot easier than creating a system backup after each install because once you overwrite what was once a good backup with what becomes a bad backup, you're screwed. Like I said, just my half-cent.

How about including some standalone graphics cards in your builds instead of using only the integrated GPUs? This is a viable option for anyone wanting to use madVR.

NICE!

Perfect!

I declare that any further discussion of SSD's is vorbotten.

I used the guide to install the Frodo version of XBMC because I wanted to see what a front end with a Pandora plugin was like. This is what I found:
-The XBMC install screen shots are not exactly the same. For instance, when you add movies, Frodo creates a new Movies heading next to Video, not under it (adding TV shows doesn't do the same thing). Still easy to follow, though.
-The Aeon MQ 3 skin didn't work for me; when I went to get the MQ 3 skin add-on, it was listed as "broken" rather than "enabled". Numerous attempts didn't work.
-The application at the Pandora file link didn't work for me. I had to use the alternate link, go to the end of the Pandora discussion, then start reading backwards until I found a link to an application that worked.

So far, I'm disappointed with XBMC compared to WMC. It doesn't seem to be able to group or play my music by genre, artist, album. It doesn't seem to be able to integrate slide shows while listening to music. Of course, live TV or discrete XBMC remote control commands aren't an option. It's ability to play Pandora is much better though.

It seems to me that HTPC application development takes place in the wild, wild west. You must turn to individual HTPC enthusiasts and programmers for plugins and applications If you want an experience that differs from just watching movies and listening to music on WMC. I am not a HTPC enthusiast; I like to set something up and leave it alone. That is why I turn to the Assassin Guide.

For Pandora, I just use IE. Couldn't be easier, could it?

Michael

You mean you just use browser and webstream it ??

Seems almost too easy... lol

Yes, you could pick up a remote, push the "Pandora" button and have Pandora start streaming. It's OK, some people didn't understand TV remote controls in the 1960's either.

Hey assassin, is this your "support" forum for subscribers to your blog/guides? I couldn't find anything on there so I assume this is as close as it gets?

Do you happen to have any Intel i3 32bit drivers around for WIndows 7? For some reason the intel page doesn't have a download link, and nothing automatically downloads.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3224&DwnldID=21768&ProductFamily=Processors&ProductLine=Desktop&ProductProduct=Intel%C2%AE+Core%E2%84%A2+i3+Desktop+Processor&lang=eng

Actually I don't believe I have an i3 Processor. I have the G850 and G620, both are their "Duo Core" processor line...right? Sorry I am not up to date on the technology.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Processors&ProductLine=Desktop&ProductProduct=Intel%C2%AE+Core%E2%84%A22+Duo+Desktop+Processor&ProdId=2558&LineId=3004&FamilyId=24
Edited by HunterX82 - 2/2/13 at 4:19pm

That's what I do. The shortcut to IE is assigned a shortcut key, Pandora is the home page, and I'm done.

Your point being...?

Why would you want to d/l the drivers for the i3 if you have a celeron?

I think you should download the mother board drivers from the mother board manufacturer's website.

I was just following the guide from Assassin. I didn't think it through before trying to download drivers for it. Neither the G850 or G620 say i3 so I assume they are Duo Core, the website doesn't say anything about Celeron? Again, I am a bit noob here!

http://ark.intel.com/products/53491/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G850-(3M-Cache-2_90-GHz)

You do need the intelligent management software to use the on-board video/audio to it's fullest extent. I don't think it is really processor dependent, at least not for those processors.

Well thanks--I don't see a "contact" on your website otherwise I would use that, sorry!

Do you know why I would blue screen when I change my SATA mode to AHCI? Unless I keep it as IDE, I bluescreen. All of the other optiosn in your bios guide work just fine.

My HDD is SATA, this motherboard doesn't even have IDE connections.

Do I need to install the LAV splitter stuff if I'm only using the TV's speakers? The best I have is a old 2:1 system that I've been plugging into the headphone jack in the back of the TV. But had a problem one day and unplugged them. So, anyway, I'm guessing NO to my question.