Hot, Loud, Expensive HTPC? :-)

Well your budget certainly encompasses anything you may want to do, however your list of requirements means you probably don't need to spend more than $300-$400 (ex OS and HDDs). This would get you an i3 system with a SDD for the OS, no need for separate GFX card, bitstream HDMI audio out to a receiver (that will be the best audio you can get), Bluray drive and basic components (case, PSU etc).

What HDMI audio issues are you referring to?

Check Assassin's guides in the sticky threads for recommended HTPC configurations. Stick with components that have been tested and you should be fine. Anything based on an Intel SandyBridge or IvyBridge processor should do nicely.

I'd definitely upgrade the B&K Ref 20. That thing is ancient by today's standards (old is not necessarily bad when it comes to analog, but digital requires newer technology). I used to have a Ref 30 and thought it was too old when I switched to an Onkyo Pro PR-SC885 preamp/propcessor with HDMI switching.

How many drives do you have/want?

ASUS is generally regarded (by the majority of users) as one of the best board makers out there.
From what I understood, you were using the board's SATA ports for a RAID config, is that correct? If it is, then you were using software RAID, and personally I wouldn't do it. Just not a good idea.

If you don't have too many drives the best thing you could do is make 1:1 back-ups. Hard drives were down to $30/TB before the floods, now they are hovering at around $50-$60/TB. It is still an inexpensive backup method, considering you can keep the backup at a separate physical location in case of physical disaster. RAID is not going to help much in such situations.

Almost all newer hardware comes with onboard HD video decoding & HD audio capability. Its as simple as hooking up your HDMI AVR or Pre/Pro to the onboard HDMI and configuring the drivers & software. Its much simpler and easier nowadays than it was a few years ago.

Can your Pre/Pro accept HDMI inputs?
Also, read this about 24Hz playback. You decide if it is that important to you.

You might want to look at the flexraid thread in this forum for redundancy.

I agree w/ you that RAID should be fault-tolerant and depending on a single controller is a dumb idea. That's why I run mine w/ Linux's software RAID...no controllers...all drives use UUIDs so you can plug them into another system and it'll just work...

FlexRaid or another self healing software raid with a parity drive would be a nice choice in a HTPC environment.

I too had a WD raptor RAID0 based 4800X on socket 939- good in it's day but loud and hot. lol. It's totally outclassed by a $35 Intel G530 CPU today.


Look for an i5 Ivy sounds like it might be a good choice for you, I like Asus and I know you don't so I would let you figure that out.

Basically with the current state and level of performance in today's hardware doing what you want and excessively beyond should cost you no more than half your budget.



With a budget of $4000 total.. you might want to build a nice $500 HTPC just to see how you like it. Consider it a learning cost... lol

My Main Rig is an i7, and it's way beyond anything I need and it costs me much less than your total budget.

I think you should re-evaluate what you really want to do- and choose more consumer oriented stuff for a much lower cost.

I hear what you saying about the commercial stuff- but I don't think it applies today. The available hardware is pretty good.

I personally find it easier to build with mainstream stuff anyways because a fix for any problem I might encounter is easily available online for me to find.

The obscure higher end stuff your more on your own...

I have build 6 HTPC's on Asus boards in last six months and probably another 6 PC's in last 5 years on Asus too.

I have never had to call the tech line or get support. Why would you even consider that a factor ?


I would build a server + a HTPC set up. Do a nice server on WHS with FlexRaid in a server case. You can get your server mobo, cpu, RAM and all the stuff you feel is important...

Then build a nice fast HTPC as a client for your daily driver...

For the audio, the sky's the limit on what you can spend on high end processors and amps but for me (and the scientific community) there is no gain in the sound the human ear is capable of hearing. If you want more help in this area, check out the AMPs, Receivers, and Processors sub forum:

An HTPC with HDMI bitstreaming audio capability coupled with a good A/V receiver and speakers (possibly a separate amp too if you need more power) is all you need for the max home theater experience. Converting DTS HD or Dolby TrueHD to analog and then going the processor -amp route will not improve the sound.

HDMI switching has become commonplace on virtually all new receivers, preamp/processors, and associated Home Theater equipment. I don't know where you're getting that it adds a premium to the price because any price increase is minimal at best. I use HDMI switching because I prefer to have a dedicated standalone processor handle the surround processing rather than let the PC do it. Keeping the audio and video in the digital domain reduces the risk of noise and other artifacts being injected into the signal.

Processors these days can be upgraded via a firmware update to incorporate the latest decoding schemes if you're concerned about obsolescence. The latest B&K Reference 70 preamp/processor can be upgraded in just such a manner. Since I'm mainly interested in HD bitstreaming I only need a processor that can handle DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD and play it back via my 7.1 surround system. I never saw a reason to use any of the other surround formats since the original source was never tailored for them in the first place.

Well, so what you want is analog outs from the HTPC?
Most onboard audio chipsets nowadays are really good....but again 'good' depends on listening ability and to my ears onboard analog audio is good enough.
I don't know of any method whereby you would be able to obtain balanced outs from a HTPC.
The easiest path is to have the software player decode the HD audio stream and send it out to your Pre/Pro via the analog outs. However, the audio quality will depend on the software/codecs/filters used for the decoding.
That is why the HDMI solution has become so popular in HTPCs now; because its cheap. A $20 card allows us to send out the HD stream, as it is, to an external AVR.
I have a relatively mid (or high) end AVR with RCA pre-outs and I hooked it up to an Emotiva 7-ch amp which powers my speakers.
To my ears its high-end; anything more than this would just be a waste of money (for me) since I can't hear any better.
Since your budget is $4000, I believe you would be able to spend $600-$900 on a AVR or Pre/Pro with pre-outs. If you are hankering for balanced outs, then maybe check out Emotiva.
Their XMC-1 (Balanced Outs) has been in development for sometime now, while the UMC-1 (Unbalanced Outs) had some growing pains.
I'm not sure if you consider it a good brand but they are worth checking out.


Not the case anymore!
With Blu-Ray playback and HD audio, HTPCs were lagging initially since those F**@##$ implemented the whole PAP thing for an open looped system (PCs). I remember the joy of handling my first ever HD5000 series card for HD bitstreaming....; now its commonplace.
Also, it is easier to get digital bits streamed outside your HTPC than it is to decode it inside and send out analog. Plus there is the debate of audio quality: digital bits decoded externally (AVR) or internally (HTPC).

Software RAID will be independant of the controller. So, even if the controller dies, the individual disks can be moved to another system and "imported" the RAID Array. I have done it a few times, and never lost a single bit of data.

Hardware controllers are over rated for a home user. They give you nice bragging rights, and lighten your wallet, but software RAID is less expensive, and more forgiving than true, corporate level hardware RAID.

I was strongly in the "do it all in the HTPC" camp for the past six years. Analog out direct to 5.1 power amp. X-Fi Elite Pro sound card. If you do everything from your HTPC (no other sources) it just makes sense, and technically there are no barriers for it to be a fantastic experience (with minor exception that nobody has brought that fantastic solution forward).

It just seems ridiculous to buy a high-end pre/pro (thousands of dollars), only to see it obsoleted in a few short years with a new standard. Yes, a few are upgradable, but read the fine print on that angle....

....but I waited and waited for that great software solution (and hardware), and it just never came to pass. So I gave up three months ago, bought a mid-fi pre/pro (Emotiva UMC-1) connected to my Parasound 220w x 5, and the experience is great.

However, there is no reason that the HTPC cannot decode every current format (and it can). There is no reason that it cannot do crossovers with bass management, equalization, channel expansion and/or contraction, digital volume (with an expanded number of bits), equalization, and there are solutions today for most if not all of these.

However, what is missing:

a clean integrated software solution that does a nice OSD display that overlays on top of your selected front-end player solution (WMC, SageTV, XBMC, etc) without hiccups, lost-focus, full-screen exclusive problems....and...

...and a simple hardware solution....a compact USB 8-channel DAC that does a simple digital to analog conversion with high-quality to a power amp. The computer would do all the processing work and simply send 8 uncompressed channels to this DAC unit. Amazingly, this solution does not exist today.

I will be patient, but I do know that someday this solution will come to pass, and I will abandon my pre/pro in one second.

Yes, "moderate volumes" absolutely. Even within our HTPC space, though, there is the fringe, like me, that demand 10's of terabytes, and tolerance for ANY data loss varies wildly within our space.

If I had to start over today, I would have to seriously consider the software RAID. However, when I started my obsession seven years ago, most of these options were not available (and certainly none mature). So here is my pitch in defense of hardware raid (I have 34TB on a 3Ware 9650SE-24 card in RAID 6):

1) Complete operating system independence. My media server/DVR software (SageTV) has limitations for support of some fringe items like firewire recording which drive specific OS solutions, and I do not want to run two PC's 24/7.....one PC should do the whole job. The 3Ware is going to run under any OS and give some nice abstraction for the server functions.

2) RAID 6 double redundancy. I probably picked up a bad batch of WD Green drives for my array, and over the last three years, I have had THREE instances of double failure. Seems statistically impossible, but makes sense when you consider the incredible light duty this array sees, and when one drive dies, the rebuilding of the array puts a great stress on these drives. Now if you can tolerate the loss of one drive's worth of data, good on you. I, for one, could care less about availability, but I have NO tolerance for losing 2TB of data, especially as I have no record of what I lost.

3) Support: I have lost probably 12 WD drives in this array over the past 2.5 years. The measure of a redundant solution's success is not in "how fast it operates," but the robustness in which it recovers from a host of different failure scenarios (including a triple failure I had once....and I recovered everything). That 3Ware is pretty amazing. I have called tech support about three times (and the triple failure was on a Sunday), and within an hour, a very experienced tech was analyzing my log files and instructing me on how to proceed. I can't say enough good things about 3Ware support.

Again, I am not the average HTPC'er, but I would drop that grand again in a heartbeat to have the peace of mind that piece of hardware has given me.


yep.....the minute you have multiple sources, the dedicated AVR is really the best way to go. For me, the HTPC is the ONLY source (CD/DVD/Bluray, TV/cable/DVR, ripped media, streaming media Netflix, etc.). I should not need the high-end pre/pro to decode A/V formats, and do some basic crossover/bass/equal/mixing.

...and that is probably the biggest point in favor of some of these software raid solutions...the ability to add any brand/model and size drive to extend your array. The 3Ware is tolerant of different drive brands/models in same array, but I cannot use extra drive space if I put a larger capacity drive in the exiting array. My WD20EADS Green's went end-of-life, and there are now a mix of WD Greens, Blacks, and Hitachi's on the same array.