HTPC build - recommended components

SwampThing

Apologies if this is agains the normal run of things.

I posted in the HTPC forum but there doesn't seem to be too much activity on there and thought I'd get a quicker response here.

Basically, I want to build a fairly decent HTPC - my 'have to haves' a) it has to be quiet, b) it has to be SFF c) and most important - it has to 'handle' full HD - blu ray, HD MKV files etc.

I did a lot of searching for a case and I've settled on this case.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=243&Itemid=61

I also stumbled upon this - crazy money, but if budget was no object, this is the kind of thing I'd be after.

http://www.okoromedia.com/model.asp?model=BX100#pcf

So, I'm looking for a recommended shopping list, bearing in mind my 'have to haves'.

Thanks in advance.

extra-ordinary_

You could build a system using the Zotac ITX dual-core Atom board which would be pretty silent. It handles HD OK I think - you could check it out - there are reviews all over the place.

VLC player will play almost anything.

Are you putting a tuner card in this?

SwampThing

Thanks for the reply extra

The only reason I'd put a tuner card in was if I thought I'd need to write to DVD from Sky + but to date, that hasn't been and issue.

I've seen the Atom mentioned online but is it a bit underpowered? Are there better options out there using slightly higher spec components?

Thanks again

Solitaire

Where are you getting the case from and for how much? Haven't seen hide nor hair of the MicroFusion since release

That "ultimate" system is ridiculously expensive! :eek:

Can you survive on onboard audio or do you need a sound card? More importantly, are your home cinema speakers active or hooked up to an amp with a spare TOSLink optical-in to hook the HTPC up to? If you only have a decent set of speakers and no amp you'll need an amp card, and there's only one I can think of that's otu there. That would also decide your choice of mobo, as it comes with one. But for some retarded reason said mobo has zero PCI slots so a PCI tuner card is out of the question.

Also, are you satisfied with Sky's channel selection vs. FTA? If there's FTA channels you want to record from Sky won't let you :mad: Only answer is a DVB-S tuner card for recording those channels (Sky+ lets you watch them fine, its when you need to live-pause/record that its acts the ass!) and I haven't seen many DVB-S cards for PCIe... plus you need a spare LNB on your dish to run a co-ax down from into the card

Finally, is there anything you want to do with this system other than HD playback and the odd bit of web browsing? Doubt you'd want to do any gaming on this system but if you (or another user) did I'm afraid the option is off-limits pending a total system redesign (as you'd need a full-height case like the Fusion to accomodate a graphics card)

HDMI+Amp build minus cards and case:



If you didn't know the DIVA bit includes both the motherboard and the sound card/amplifier. And said mobo has onboard graphics that should be more than up to the task, including hardware HD acceleration. CPU is weak, but still ~3 times more powerful than Atom :P Atom's so weak it can't really manage hardware HD acceleration - pretty hilarious considering that its not the piece of hardware even doing the accelerating!

Tillotson

Ion motherboards are grand for decoding 1080p so long as you have a media player which uses vdpau or purevideo.

SwampThing

Thanks a million fo the feedback solitaire - I'll try answer your questions.

Solitaire wrote: »

Where are you getting the case from and for how much? Haven't seen hide nor hair of the MicroFusion since release

Elara I hope - see here

That "ultimate" system is ridiculously expensive! :eek:

Solitaire wrote: »

Can you survive on onboard audio or do you need a sound card? More importantly, are your home cinema speakers active or hooked up to an amp with a spare TOSLink optical-in to hook the HTPC up to? If you only have a decent set of speakers and no amp you'll need an amp card, and there's only one I can think of that's otu there. That would also decide your choice of mobo, as it comes with one. But for some retarded reason said mobo has zero PCI slots so a PCI tuner card is out of the question.

Right, I've no speakers/amp nor had I considered them, even though the guy in Hardly Normal did try push a ****ty €140 cinema system on me.
I suppose, I thought I'd just push sound from the PC through the TV speakers for now and work on something better later. To answer your question then, I'd like to have the option for a sound card.

Solitaire wrote: »

Also, are you satisfied with Sky's channel selection vs. FTA? If there's FTA channels you want to record from Sky won't let you :mad: Only answer is a DVB-S tuner card for recording those channels (Sky+ lets you watch them fine, its when you need to live-pause/record that its acts the ass!) and I haven't seen many DVB-S cards for PCIe... plus you need a spare LNB on your dish to run a co-ax down from into the card

Recording from Sky box to the PC is a complete nice to have - not a show stopper at all. If its an easy add-in later on, good, if not, no big deal. Spare LNB ports is no problem - I've an octo-lnb on the dish with ony 6 used.

Solitaire wrote: »

Finally, is there anything you want to do with this system other than HD playback and the odd bit of web browsing? Doubt you'd want to do any gaming on this system but if you (or another user) did I'm afraid the option is off-limits pending a total system redesign (as you'd need a full-height case like the Fusion to accomodate a graphics card)

Gaming isn't a priority, however, I'd like a fairly decent graphics card all the same - I have this mental block that I need a fairly powerful card and CPU to push proper HD. I'd hate to invest in a system that struggeled to play a full HD MKV move (all 40-50GB of it) - you know, stuttering and stalling. Maybe I'm completely off the mark with the card and CPU - so correct me if I'm wrong.

Solitaire wrote: »

HDMI+Amp build minus cards and case:


If you didn't know the DIVA bit includes both the motherboard and the sound card/amplifier. And said mobo has onboard graphics that should be more than up to the task, including hardware HD acceleration. CPU is weak, but still ~3 times more powerful than Atom :P Atom's so weak it can't really manage hardware HD acceleration - pretty hilarious considering that its not the piece of hardware even doing the accelerating!

Thanks again for taking the time to post - I appreciate it.

SwampThing

I'm not sure what this is - I thought the PC was the media player.

SwampThing

Just a thought - would the AMD Athlon64 X2 5200+ AM2"box", 2x512kB give a little more kick to this setup and also, if I was to add a gfx card, any recommendations?

SwampThing

And finally to confirm my ignorance - with i need anyhting extra to use a remote - like Harmony One - with this build?

Thanks for your patience guys.

Solitaire

AFAIK the MicroFusion comes with a wee remote for the preinstalled iMon

SwampThing wrote:

Right, I've no speakers/amp nor had I considered them, even though the guy in Hardly Normal did try push a ****ty €140 cinema system on me.
I suppose, I thought I'd just push sound from the PC through the TV speakers for now and work on something better later. To answer your question then, I'd like to have the option for a sound card.

Bear in mind if you don't buy an amp or home theatre or a (naff-quality) active speaker set you'll need an amp card, and the only reasonably priced one comes with its own motherboard A sound card gives better sound, but the result still needs to go through an amp of some sort!

Gaming isn't a priority, however, I'd like a fairly decent graphics card all the same - I have this mental block that I need a fairly powerful card and CPU to push proper HD. I'd hate to invest in a system that struggeled to play a full HD MKV move (all 40-50GB of it) - you know, stuttering and stalling. Maybe I'm completely off the mark with the card and CPU - so correct me if I'm wrong.

If you want to game then low-profile is out of the question. The closest thing to a low-profile graphics card is the HD4550 as Galaxy's LP 9600GT/9800GT never made it across the pond And unless you get a HD4670 or actually manage to find a HD4770 (and those hen's teeth while you're at it ) the card will push system TDP and power requirement way up. Although things only start to get really ugly if you need a card and the amp card.

On the other hand, decent HD-capable video is more than enough for everything else and you'd be mad to spend more than €30 on a discrete video card for this purpose. Whether you really need one is another matter - I was sticking with AMD chipsets for a reason; their onboard HD3X00 is almost always enough to handle even the most demanding hardware decoding.

As for CPU... I only put that basic one up in the assumption you won't be doing anything very CPU-intensive. If you have hardware HD acceleration then that won't tax the CPU (much). IIRC benchmarks had a HD3100 doing tons of work and even an old Sempron CPU wasn't maxing out (and thus skipping).

The catch is that many common 1080p .mkv files have a non-standard arrangement of reference frames that break L4.1 acceleration. If you've been downloading tons of 1080p .mkvs off the net you won't be able to use hardware acceleration on the non-standard ones Which means that a nicely overkill CPU might still be a good defensive move - if the HD3X00 can't catch it the CPU will have enough raw grunt to run it in software. There's a few good CPUs that run on 65W, but they tend to be pricey - €100 for a 2.5GHz Phenom2 tri-core and a little under €150 for the 65W quad. The Q9550e is the crown jewel of HTPC CPUs but its very rare and darn expensive to boot (>€200) Sadly no sign of the budget AM3 quads yet - a 45W X4-605e (2.3GHz quad) sounds just the ticket

Also, this might be a good cooler (being so flat and so quiet), but I'm not 100% sure if it will be neccessary if the stock cooler behaves itself

SwampThing

So, if I'm reading this right - sound card is essential, gfx card isn't and to be safe, put a decent CPU in there.

If that's the case, I'll ask one more favour - recommendations on the sound card and CPU?

I'm not saying money's not an issue, but I'd rather do this once and do it right - if I have to spend a little more on a quad processor now, so be it - I'd see it as a waste of time and money if it won't functions flawlessly and therefore am prepared to spend a little more to get that peace of mine.

I'd presume the cpu cooler you referenced would be required for a quad core, rather than the stock cooler?

And as for the sound card - I've read (but don't fully understand) about some TV's taking their sound via the HDMI cable - is this the case or am I off the mark? As I said before, my first goal is to get this to play a blu-ray or mkv HD movie with sound throught the TV - that I'd consider a successful venture. I can probably expand on the sound later on.

edit - is this an option for sound

..and if a gfx card was optional and €40 wouldn't break the bank, how about this

Thanks again solitaire, you've been a big help.

somakasvh

I've got a nice little HTPC system based off the Zotac Ion mini-ITX board with a Pentium E5300.

It will play any video as long as you offload h264 decoding to the integrated GPU. VLC only supports the use of its single-threaded software decoder so frequently trips up on any system, especially with 1080p videos.

You could start with a system similar to this:



You will just need to add hard drive(s) and an optical drive to the build.
The case above will either take
2x3.5" drives, 1x2.5" drive and 1 slimline optical drive OR
1x3.5" drive, 1x2.5" drive and 1x5.25" optical drive

SwampThing

Thanks somakasvh, but I'm set on a SFF case.

Maybe it's a bit late in the day for asking this and I'm about to show the extent of my ignorance - but I presume MCE can play either stored content or blu-ray disks - or do I need to have thrid party applications installed?

As it is on my own PC, WMP is OK playing either a DVD or a mkv file - any reason why this won't work with MCE?

Thanks again.

somakasvh

The Antec case will only allow the use of one hard drive but otherwise it's a nice case. Maybe you could velcro an SSD to the inside of the case to use as a boot drive and then use a high capacity 3.5" drive for storage.

With regard to playing blu-ray discs, afaik you'll need an external player like PowerDVD.

SwampThing

somakasvh, I'll live with the single drive I think, although the SSD idea is worth looking into if boot times were significantly reduced or it helped performance.

I ws hoping you wouldn't say that about playback - my wife is a techophobe - if this isn't sh1t simple to use, I'm goosed!

somakasvh

Just reading in some other forums, it seems that there are plugins for some external players so they play seamlessly in MCE.

It may also be worth considering forgoing MCE. I use MediaPortal on my HTPC and find it gives a much better user experience once it's properly configured. There's plenty of guides on how to do this so it's not too painful.

SwampThing

That's great, thanks for the info.

Blazer

+1 for Mediaportal.

I was using MCE but found Mediaportal miles better.
Even the art layout is way better.
It will also play .mkv files off the bat whereas MCE needs codecs installed for it.

A backup player that's handy to have is Media Player Classic or Cinema..
VLC has problems with skipping through scenes..however these two fly through them.

SwampThing

OK, I'll have to check that out, thanks.

SwampThing

Starting to veer towards this case - good or bad idea?

Sorry, this one...

Unregistered.

SwampThing wrote: »

Starting to veer towards this case - good or bad idea?

Which case?

Solitaire

Any prices for that thing? Not pushed on Lian Li myself - usually too expensive for what you get. That thing will most likely be a lot pricier than the MicroFusion. And it has no VFD either.

SwampThing

No price but I'll stick with the microfusion.

Solitaire, any comment on the sound card/gfx card I mentioned below and also, what CPU would you recommend for this build if as I said before, a few quid spent now was to give a better build.

Thansk again.

Solitaire

That sound card is really gaming-oriented. It might have slightly higher quality than onboard sound but its not worth the €60+ extra - we're not talking audiophile-grade sound here. For most people onboard sound will suffice; if it doesn't on a HTPC then you're stuck paying big bucks for an Asus or Auzentech card if you want/need a quantifiable increase in sound quality. If you really need the silly synth features you get on the X-Fis then get a €20 Audigy and hack the drivers...

I've already discussed the issue with amplification, which makes the above argument pretty irrelevant. If you need an amp card (i.e. no external amp) then there's only one option available. But if you can hook the HTPC up to an amp then try to keep things simple and get a card with optical-out - most HTPC-oriented mobos come with said port for the onboard. Then just run a wee TOSLink cable over to the amp

That's a mighty cheap HD4550 for sure. But its not hugely neccessary if you have onboard HD3x00/HD4200/9300GS already on the mobo. If you're not gaming then those are all you need. And if there's an issue with a MKV file that prevents the GPU from processing it then the CPU is about to get b****-slapped no matter how powerful your graphics card

I didn't know there were so many issues with non-standard .mkvs floating around. I'd recommend a 65W Phenom2 for that reason. Getting a 65W C2Q is even more expensive and then you're stuck with an nForce mobo or a seperate graphics card, as the Intel chipsets suck. With a Phenom2 just drop into an AM2 or AM3 mATX mobo and the chipset does the rest :P

Example (obviously minus case/PSU):



Do you need the BluRay drive? And do you need a TV card?

SwampThing

Thanks for the update Solitaire, but you've managed to confuse the hell out of me.

I was hoping you'd come back and say 'don't need any sound card as the on-board is fine, up the CPU to X and if you really feel the need get Y gfx card. If you need a TV card, get Z - pour them into the microfusion case and off you go!'

Any reason for changing the spec from the DIVA?

Sorry for being a pain - I just want to get this right first time.

Thanks.

Solitaire

CPU to catch any .mkvs or other HD media files that decide to play silly buggers and not work on the HD4200.

Mobo because a DIVA is an utter waste of money if you're not wiring up any external speakers up to the PC.

Memory because its cheap (and is it me or are all DDR prices rising?).

Graphics (or lack thereof) because you won't need any more than the onboard video for HD playback and if you're not hooking it up to an amp or speakers then you only need the 2ch stereo sound your TV has so LPCM-Over-HDMI is a waste of time.

I doubt the speakers on the TV are good enough to make a sound card even useful. If you're not going to be adding five good-quality external speakers and a sub you don't need the added sound quality even if you could notice the improvement a sound card could add to a fancier HTPC setup. Of course, if you do intend to buy a decent-quality 5.1 passive speaker set in the future you still need the DIVA for its sound/amp card thingy. Just swap it for the current mobo (and watch the price fly up! ).

SwampThing

So, the final word then is :

Your original spec, with a better CPU - maybe a AMD Athlon64 X2 5200+, no additional gfx card and on-board sound on the DISA is all I need?

Cheers

Solitaire

You only need the DIVA if you want to add (decent!) passive (i.e. no amp!) 5.1 speakers to the system. If you're getting an amp, or an active speaker set, or not adding any then its €100 down the drain for no good reason.

On the other hand, if you are getting a set of decent HT speakers then I can't recommend the DIVA enough. It may seem pricey but the cost of a decent sound card and external amp can add €300-600 to a HTPC build. None of that BS with the DIVA. It has a sound card and amp built-in And from what I've heard the DAE-3 chip is easily equivalent to an audiophile-grade card like the Xonar or the Auzentechs. People keep gushing about it Even the X-Fi Titanium can't hope to come close to that kind of quality :P

Just bear in mind that the DIVA has no DVI port (only VGA and HDMI) and no PCI slots (so any attempt to add WiFi or a TV tuner will have to be via PCIe or USB).

On other matters: do you or do you not need a BluRay player? Adding one drives up the price and prevents you from burning DVDs (no space for a second drive on the MicroFusion IIRC) but its still a common and neccessary piece of kit on a HTPC. And I'm not sure if you should get too weak a CPU given the GPU acceleration issues I've heard. 99% of the time the HD3200 would be enough but for the other 1% you could end up with massive stutterring with an old Athlon CPU. Sadly the 45W Athlon2s still aren't out yet - a cheap 2.3GHz tri- or quad-core would do nicely.

SwampThing

OK, Diva it is.

I do absolutely want a Bluray drive - blu-ray burner if possible - but player is a must. This setup is to replace the DVD player under the TV and add all the extras that the NMT A-110 gives me, in one box. The missus will have a conniption if she can't easily play a DVD/blu-ray without having a computer science degree.

Can you recommend a CPU then solitaire - the spec for the Diva says TDP should not exceed 95W. This is 89W but will it draw too much power and therefore be louder? Or do I go for this at 65W?

As for the lack of a DVI port - how will that restrict me in real terms? Will it cause issues using the TV as the display for the OS?

Solitaire

Ugh. Neither IMHO. I doubt either could be guaranteed to push a 1080p .mkv if it wasn't encoded to true H264 standard (and thus the GPU choked on it). Even the X2-6000+ is only comparable to a ~2.2GHz C2D on a good day. At least the X3-705e is equivalent to a E5200-and-a-half. But if you really can't afford a 65W Phenom2 then look at the X2-245 or something else Athlon2 (sadly the 45W Athlon2 quads still aren't out yet). Not great, but cheap and still a lot more powerful and cooler-running than the 6000+. Oh, and that 6000+ is an OEM unit - no cooler or warranty.

As for optical burners, if you can't afford a decent CPU then a burner is out of the question - no combo drives around and the cheapest BluRay burner is €190 - over €100 more than a cheap BluRay player. AFAIK all the BluRay players are only DVD-ROMs, you can only burn DVDs on the drives that burn BluRays :rolleyes:

And the DIVA doesn't lack DVI capability, but there's complaints that some of them don't ship with any HDMI>DVI dongle so you'd have to find one yourself if you're unlucky and you actually needed it. I doubt it'd be a huge issue though - MSI have the right idea that most users would hook up the big telly using HDMI and run a second smaller screen off the available VGA port so even if you did want to use a secondary screen there's no issue. Only problem would be if your main screen had DVI but no HDMI port, which would be pretty weird...

turly

FYI - further to the Antec Micro Fusion case, I saw it on ebuyer today for 70 quid sterling, down from 110.

Indeed they have a bundle offer of the Micro Fusion case and the MSI Media Live DIVA Socket AM2+ motherboard (retailing for 150 quid on its own) for 196 quid - a further saving of 24 quid.

Be warned that the Micro Fusion is legendarily tight - "tighter than a crab's ass at 40 fathoms" as a friend of mine said... :-)

Solitaire

turly wrote:

Be warned that the Micro Fusion is legendarily tight - "tighter than a crab's ass at 40 fathoms" as a friend of mine said...

SwampThing

So, you'd recommend the Phenom II X3 705e AM3 in the Diva - all other components OK?

Thanks again.