Guide to Building a HTPC, Workstation and Server - Page 85

Ok, so Ive reconfigured my nonexistent HTPC yet again. Thoughts?

Intel E8400 Wolfdale Processor
GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3R Motherboard
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 Memory (or something else on the comp list if I see it cheaper)
XFX GeForce 8600GT Video Card (Zalman fan)
LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM GGC-H20L Optical Drive
Undetermined 450W power supply (possibly the Corsair mentioned above)
Undetermined Mid-tower case (Dont like any of the HTPC cases in my price range)
2 x Samsung Spinpoint 750GB HDD for media, a 3rd smaller drive for software.
Will probably add a Haupage PVR and Imon IR at some point later.

Only thing Im second guessing right now is I may want a video card with 512MB memory (Im not planning to game on it, but its very possible still...plus I am planning on having a second monitor output).

Renethx:

I was checking out your recommendation for the premium II rig. I like your mother board selection. I was looking for something with a few high powered pci-e slots. Future proofing. I was wondering if this board would be a good choice for the yet to be released Asus Xonar 1.3 hdav? Or would a scaled down board (less sound) in the same chip set be a better idea?

Hiya,

Could you have a look at my suggested setup and give comments please. I'm wanting to upgrade my Xbox running XBMC with a dedicated HTPC but not with anything too expensive.

Although XBMC has its benefits, I think I might shift to running the HTPC on Vista OS with MediaPortal as I'm not skilled in Linux.

As I'm in the UK, the costs are in pounds using the cheapest I can find on the web:

Case: Silverstone LC20 Black: £74.35
Motherboard: Gigabyte P35-DS3P: £62.41
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7200 S775 2.53Ghz: £61.42
Memory: 2x1GB DDR2 PC2-4200: £25.84
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GeForce 8500 GT GV-NX85T2565
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint T166 500GB HD501LJ: £37.37
Optical Drive: Logitech LGGC-H20L Blu-Ray and HD-DVD - £62.12

I'm still in need of advice on two things. It is likely that I'm also going to run my webserver on this PC so would like it to be on 24/7. I'm therefore looking for a quiet PSU and CPU cooler. Any ideas?

CPU Cooler (with fan):
PSU:

Finally, as I'm in the UK we don't yet have HD over freeview. I'm therefore likely to use the following TV tuner until we get to that stage:

TV Tuner: Hauppauge WinDVD PVR-500 - £66.33 - IT247.com

Many thanks

Ok complete newby question. So everything is up and looking good. i have the card connected to my tv with vga for now until i get a dvi-hdmi cable. so now whats the best way to get the sound working?...the mb has an spdif output but the graphics card doesnt have an input for it. the tv has 3 hdmi inputs.

any suggestions/guidance would be great. thanks!

First off, this thread is an excellent guide. There's tons of valuable info here. Thanks!

So, I'd like to replace my large, loud, and heat generating PC with a smaller, quieter, more energy efficient HTPC. Media would be streamed via Cat5e Gigabit from a server in another room to this HTPC. Of course, it must playback all file types including HiDef. I already have Seagate 250GB SATA HD, Sony BDUX10S BD Rom, AverMedia PCI Combo, and Vista Premium 32 that I will recycle. Here are the new parts I'm considering:

Intel DG45ID (when it becomes available)
Intel e7200 Wolfdale
G.Skill 2x1GB DDR2 800
InWin MTJADE GLS300

I'll be using MediaPortal 1.0.rc1 and MPC-HC with all the necessary codecs for frontend.

Questions:

1. I've seen few uses of the Mt.Jade case. Can anyone provide any feedback as to the heat dissipation abilities and noise factor of this design?

2. Will this configuration allow for a single HDMI cable directly into my HDTV to provide video and audio? I'm currently only utilizing the stereo speakers on the TV, but would like to upgrade to 5.1 system down the road.

3. Cost is always a consideration. I can get all these new parts for around $400 US. I'd like to stick to that budget. I've looked at the 780G model for around the same price.

GIGABYTE GA-MA78GPM-DS2H
Phenom 8450 Toliman 2.1GHz
G.Skill 2 x 1GB DDR2 1066
InWin BT566T.300BL case (Mt.Jade case seems to be Intel specific)

I'm partial to Intel, but would consider AMD if it will perform better.

4. I'm trying to avoid the use of discrete graphics to keep cost/heat/power requirements at a minimum. Since I will be doing ZERO GAMING on this machine, is that reasonable?




Any thoughts or comments?

His recommendations have gotten fairly old now, as he doesn't mention the P45 nor X48 chipsets. Also he doesn't seem to know about Silverstone, Origen, or Moneual cases. So I've had to start research over from scratch. Good effort though.

So far I have it narrowed down to the Moncaso 932 case and one of these:
No clear winners here. I want integrated graphics (for the case LCD) and lots of room for PCI cards (whether PCIe or otherwise). I don't know which PCI, cards are coming in these days, so it's a question whether more 16bit or 1bit is better.

I really like the idea of ASUS' EPU-6 Engine, assuming that it's not just marketing hype, much less whether it works in Linux.

Of course for PSU it will be a Silver or Gold-rated one on the 80Plus site.

... Will be running MythTV over Kubongo, and HD DVR will be this machine's main role. The PCIe video card will drive my projector, and must have BluRay hardware decode; haven't gotten that far yet tho. I hear R5000 HD support for MythTV is unreliable, but HD-PVR has lots o' problems too. What's a poor girl to do?

I would just like to say in regards to the Antec Fusion 430 listed in the Mid Range mATX build, this case is amazing, I did a LOW END II build except I included this case, and my CPU (E2220) doesn't ever go over 35 degrees C, and is usually 20-25C, on the Stock Cooler.

My friend has a similiar build except he is using a TOWER, and his runs 55-65 degrees C.

Will any of those low cost systems, run any .h264 .mkv 1080p videos without any problem whatsoever?

With my low end II build, I threw everything I could at it and have had 0 problems so far. I am incredibly impressed with its performance.

Thanks again to renethx.

How do you connect it to the TV? Hdmi>HDMi cable?

I connect my 8500GT to my Sammy hls6187w via VGA @1080p, however DVI-HDMI can also be used in my setup.

Reading in other foruns i saw some people mentioning that .mkv files doesnt support hardware aceleration, is that true?

If yes, what people do to run such videos?

From reading and advice from folks on this thread I built the system below.
Looks great and sound s good but noticed a problem today.
Streaming lossless wma I noticed audio dropouts about every 3 or 4 songs (no one logged on to the main machine.)
I suspected wireless problems.
Later my son was watching a Blue-Ray movie and noticed drop outs in the audio.
Where would be the best place to start looking?
Thanks

SILVERSTONE Black SST-LC17-B
ENERMAX MODU82+ EMD525AWT 525W
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS4P
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz
Crucial Ballistix 2GB
SAPPHIRE 100233L Radeon HD 3450 256MB
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB
LITE-ON Black 12X DVD-ROM

Linksys WRT160N Router
Linksys WMP300N PCI
Optical out to Denon 4802
HDMI out to Panny 1080p

Haven't seen this mentioned yet but surely it makes sense to wait for the Intel DG45FC Mini-ITX? Core-2-Duo ready, HDMI 1.3, a board that will fit with ease into those slim HTPC cases, and IGP graphics from the Intel GMA X4500 chip, so not shabby either.

For me, having built two HTPCs lately, one in a desktop form factor, yhe Thermaltake DH-101, so it's not ugly - just big. Too big for my next HTPC, which will have to sit on a living room glass shelf and really look the part. I'd love to use the Silverstome ML-02 for example, but wouldn't want to lose the power of a full HDTV ready HTPC by bailing out to a Via-Mini ITX solution.

What do you think?

EDIT: AVS already has a thread here. Expected August/September.

boydn1, the first place to start is to see whether the disk is busy. If so, you are disk-bound. Second, you see no problems with video stuttering? If so, I can't help as I'm a Linux type and Winduhs sux.

David O, I hadn't even looked at Intel mobos, but will now, thanks. I see that the X4500HD has hardware decode of mpeg2, AVC, & VCI, but I don't have time to look up whether one of those is BluRay format. I consider hardware decode of BluRay vital, as that's how I'll be storing all my Myth recordings.

I hear ya on the large case. I finally capitulated with the Moncaso 932 giant, but am not happy with the size at all. However sorting out all the mini and micro cases and figuring out all their respective gotchas and limitations has proven impossible for me with what little time I have. I must have at least audio (preferably X-Fi Elite Pro), a couple of PCIe 1bit slots, 10 USB2's, and a PCI slot.

Actually, if you looked on page 85, post 2523, renethx has posted updates to his 1st page recommendations, some of which include Silverstone cases.

As for OrigenAE, I've got a X11 from when they were Uneed, and while it looks good, the backpanel doesn't line up (need to use washers as spacers - what's up with that!!!) and the VFD/IR module is worthless unless your running MCE or use third-party software. Oh well...

About the recommended "Low End II"


Can i cut the off board video card and still be able to play 720p/1080p .mkv .h264 files?

Is there any new all-in-one motherboard which is better than this one?

Link in my post above has been fixed

It's full HD decoding for Blu-ray discs, as well as for well-encoded .mkv (but still need a top end processor for other mkv files). For sound, lossles LPCM 7.1.

Downside appears to be expense (though prices at about $150 is what is expected and that's not so bad, especially as it may save you a graphics card and a top-end sound card).


Me too. My only worry would be the heat of a 3GHz processor in a tiny case, though again the newest Dual Core processors seem to wind down nicely when they are not usefully employed. Even my Q6600 system never gets hot like my older Pentium 4 and AMD 64's do.

I believe the ML-02 would be difficult with just a 120W power supply, using a picoUPS could get it to 200W but the case would apparently need modding, not sure I'm really up to that. Also I am off VFD's in a big way as they are just a pain to program nicely, and impossible to read from any distance. So my search continues. If I have to mod, I would rather buy a nice cheap-as-Chinese slim DVD player and gouge the innards out than go with some of the cases out there.

Well you wont get that with a Mini-ITX board.

Thinking of buying this. Any problems or suggested upgrades?

Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 dual core system
MSI P35 Neo combo Intel P35 chipset mainboard
CoolerMaster Centurion 5 toolless ATX tower
Thermaltake 430w Silent ATX power supply
2Gb PC6400 dual channel DDR2-RAM
nVidia GeForce 8800GT PCI-e video w/512Mb
Seagate 320Gb SATA 7200RPM hard drive
Integrated 7.1 digital surround audio
LG dual layer DVD±RW drive w/NERO
Integrated 10/100/1000BT LAN adapter
12-in-1 media card reader

Thanks in advance

I created my build any ideas/suggestions? Any incompatibilities, necessities, or ways of making it cheaper?

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Pu...Number=6427374

I'll be adding either the ASUS or Auzentech sound card to this build upon release. I'd like to add a HD tuner of some sort (hauppage?) to it also... any suggestions on that? Also the reason why I chose this LG HD/Blu-ray combo drive is because I read this Lite-On drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106227 has problems reading Dual-Layer blu-rays... anyone know if thats been fixed?

Edit: Also I imagine I will be using Vista 32-bit edition.

Thanks