help needed specing a HTPC (today!)

jackrussell007

Hi folks

I started a HTPC build 12 months ago and only got as far as buying a Antec Fusion Remote case before my priorities got recessionised. Now with all my good work all year I'm hoping to nail my boss for a small bonus while there is still a few quid left in the IT budget here at work. I have to buy some RAM today or tomorrow for a PC here at work so this is a good opportunity to piggy back it on that.

what i need is

a mobo with hdmi
sound card good enough to integrate with surround sound (eventually)
processor + ram to cope with above (doesnt have to be top of the range)
nice quiet PS/U
blu ray drive (chancing my arm now)
tv tuner card
and it all needs to fit in the antec fusion remote case obviously

I need to get all of this off one website to have any chance. komplett.ie is preferable.

any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

TskTsk

jackrussell007 wrote: »

Hi folks

tv tuner card
and it all needs to fit in the antec fusion remote case obviously

I'd avoid Terratec cards if at all possible. My DVB-S2 card is working OK now, but it gave me a good bit of hassle last week. Also, you probably realise this already, but you'll need low-profile PCI cards for the Antec case.

slegs

I've just built a HTPC this week with teh following components

Case - ADVANCE 2610 HTPC PC Box Black
Power - COOLER MASTER RP-550-PCAP eXtreme Power 500W Power Unit
Memory - CORSAIR CL5 PC2-6400 XMS2 Xtreme Performance TwinX Matched 4x1024MB DDR II SDRAM PC Memory
Mobo -Intel DG45ID - 775 Socket - G45 Chipset - Micro ATX
Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 - 2.93 GHz, 3 MB L2 Cache, 775 Socket
Bluray/DVDRW - LG CH08LS10 Internal Blu-ray/DVD Reader/Rewriter
HDD -4*1.5TB Samsung HDDs, 3 of which in RAID5 array
TV Cards - Terratec Cinergy 2400i Dual DVB-T card and Pinnacle Dual Sat Pro 4000i PCI TV Tuner Card
OS - Windows 7 MCE and Linux Ubuntu Dual Boot (planned MythTV)
Keyboard/Mouse - Accuratus Toughball 2.4GHZ Wireless Keyboard with Optical Trackbal

My learnings
1. Mobo is perfect, has HDMI and onboard HD Audio via HDMI. onboard video is more than enough for HTPC if not playing gasmes on it.
2. Processor - has a fan so creates some noise but not very loud. Still overall would need to have the unit in a cabinet to minimise audible fan.
3. Power - fan is very quiet
4. Case - very nice looking but too big for my living room (Its full ATX). Upside is that I could fit the TV cards and lots of hardrives without issues. Bluray drive is hidden behind a nice AV type DVD panel on the case.
5. Win7 MCE works out of the box after updating the Terratec driver.
6. Mediaportal not yet working with DTT (codec issue). Receives but does not display.
7. Linux not recognising my HD Audio or TV cards yet...more investigation needed there. The Terratec could be a problem here.

hope this helps..

jackrussell007

thanks for the suggestions folks

slegs, I was just looking for some of those compononets you have over at komplett and bame across the bundle below. maybe its suitable for what I'm after

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=575783

BigEejit

Any budget in mind?

I am on my third generation htpc now

The first one I just wanted it to do the job (record and play tv and play movies etc) and while it did the job, it was hot and noisy and the whole experience was not great.

The second one did what the first one did but an awful lot quieter, also a good bit faster ... but got a lot hotter and this probably is what killed it eventually

The current one is silent while I sit on the couch, (cannot hear it in the room at all and barely heard when I put my ear to the case). I am using an Antec VERIS Fusion Remote Black case, a fanless PSU (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/400W-FSP-ZEN-Fanless-ATX-12V-V22-80plus-Eff-PCI-E-SATA) and I went for an AMD Athlon 64 x2 5050e low power psu and a uatx mobo that has hdmi out. There are two fans in the case now, a scythe shuriken on the cpu cooler and a sharkoon golfball case fan. There is just one hard disk and it is suspended with bungee cord.

jackrussell007

I'd like it fairly silent, or maybe non intrusive is a better way of putting it.

budget is maybe 200-300 (that rules out the blu ray drive really doesnt it)

One of those bundles would be ideal cause its just one purchase which might make it easier for the boss man to cough up for.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=575783
something like this bundle would be ideal but from what I can see it doesnt appear to have any hdmi output...am I wrong, is this unusual? would I end up having to get a graphics card that has hdmi or what?

thanks for helping out the newbie

slegs

jackrussell007 wrote: »

thanks for the suggestions folks

slegs, I was just looking for some of those compononets you have over at komplett and bame across the bundle below. maybe its suitable for what I'm after

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=575783

I got the components above from pixmania...

slegs

jackrussell007 wrote: »

I'd like it fairly silent, or maybe non intrusive is a better way of putting it.

budget is maybe 200-300 (that rules out the blu ray drive really doesnt it)

One of those bundles would be ideal cause its just one purchase which might make it easier for the boss man to cough up for.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=575783
something like this bundle would be ideal but from what I can see it doesnt appear to have any hdmi output...am I wrong, is this unusual? would I end up having to get a graphics card that has hdmi or what?

thanks for helping out the newbie

That will be your problem. Reckon the minimum for a HTPC is 5-600 EUR for all components. You should definitely get a motherboard with HDMI and HD Audio. These mobos generally have specific HW handling of Bluray and HD H.264. Buying a separate video card to do this is a waste.

I am way overspecced and a little sorry now I didnt go for lower spec processor and hence lower cooling requirements and noise. Also the smaller case is somethng I should also have got for living room acceptability.

FrankGrimes

slegs wrote: »

I've just built a HTPC this week with teh following components

Case - ADVANCE 2610 HTPC PC Box Black
Power - COOLER MASTER RP-550-PCAP eXtreme Power 500W Power Unit
Memory - CORSAIR CL5 PC2-6400 XMS2 Xtreme Performance TwinX Matched 4x1024MB DDR II SDRAM PC Memory
Mobo -Intel DG45ID - 775 Socket - G45 Chipset - Micro ATX
Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 - 2.93 GHz, 3 MB L2 Cache, 775 Socket
Bluray/DVDRW - LG CH08LS10 Internal Blu-ray/DVD Reader/Rewriter
HDD -4*1.5TB Samsung HDDs, 3 of which in RAID5 array
TV Cards - Terratec Cinergy 2400i Dual DVB-T card and Pinnacle Dual Sat Pro 4000i PCI TV Tuner Card
OS - Windows 7 MCE and Linux Ubuntu Dual Boot (planned MythTV)
Keyboard/Mouse - Accuratus Toughball 2.4GHZ Wireless Keyboard with Optical Trackbal

My learnings
1. Mobo is perfect, has HDMI and onboard HD Audio via HDMI. onboard video is more than enough for HTPC if not playing gasmes on it.
2. Processor - has a fan so creates some noise but not very loud. Still overall would need to have the unit in a cabinet to minimise audible fan.
3. Power - fan is very quiet
4. Case - very nice looking but too big for my living room (Its full ATX). Upside is that I could fit the TV cards and lots of hardrives without issues. Bluray drive is hidden behind a nice AV type DVD panel on the case.
5. Win7 MCE works out of the box after updating the Terratec driver.
6. Mediaportal not yet working with DTT (codec issue). Receives but does not display.
7. Linux not recognising my HD Audio or TV cards yet...more investigation needed there. The Terratec could be a problem here.

hope this helps..

Hey slegs, does your setup play 1080p well? Would it be able to play 1080p smoothly while a program like GrabIt was busy downloading and unzipping Usenet files?

Of my friends and colleagues that are interested in HTPC setups there's clearly 2 very separate camps: those looking for just the bare basic cheapest setup possible to get live TV, and those looking for more bells and whistles. Sounds like jackrussell's budget is going to force him into the former camp so I'll be very interested to see what spec will fit a tight budget and also do the job. Though to be honest jack, if it works it works - you can survive without the fancy stuff.

jackrussell007

my budget and what I'll get away with by the boss are probably two different things.

I'm willing to buy some of the other components myself further down the line. I just want to nail the boss for whatever I can within a budget of 200 to 300 euro.

If I rephrase my question, what motherboard, processor + RAM would you go for to fit that budget + that style case,

I want to play 1080p and I want to integrate with surround sound system.

thanks for all the help

TskTsk

slegs wrote: »

Memory - CORSAIR CL5 PC2-6400 XMS2 Xtreme Performance TwinX Matched 4x1024MB DDR II SDRAM PC Memory

OS - Windows 7 MCE and Linux Ubuntu Dual Boot (planned MythTV)

Memory - I've 4GB in mine. Windows 7 recognises the 4GB, but only 2.25 is 'usable'. Are you running the 64bit version of Windows 7?

OS - Are you running MythTV for any particular reason or feature? I had a quick look at Mythbuntu, but the lack of Bluray support in Linux is a big negative at the moment.

BigEejit

TskTsk wrote: »

Memory - I've 4GB in mine. Windows 7 recognises the 4GB, but only 2.25 is 'usable'. Are you running the 64bit version of Windows 7?

OS - Are you running MythTV for any particular reason or feature? I had a quick look at Mythbuntu, but the lack of Bluray support in Linux is a big negative at the moment.

I think you'll find that you are using 3.25GB of the available ram

jackrussell007

this one looks decent no? http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3707611/art/msi/785gm-e51-socket-am3-chip.html#tech-specs

it doesnt say anything about sound card though, I presume I'd have to buy one

slegs

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Hey slegs, does your setup play 1080p well? Would it be able to play 1080p smoothly while a program like GrabIt was busy downloading and unzipping Usenet files?

Of my friends and colleagues that are interested in HTPC setups there's clearly 2 very separate camps: those looking for just the bare basic cheapest setup possible to get live TV, and those looking for more bells and whistles. Sounds like jackrussell's budget is going to force him into the former camp so I'll be very interested to see what spec will fit a tight budget and also do the job. Though to be honest jack, if it works it works - you can survive without the fancy stuff.

Yes, havent stretched it yet but 1080p has been perfect so far

slegs

TskTsk wrote: »

Memory - I've 4GB in mine. Windows 7 recognises the 4GB, but only 2.25 is 'usable'. Are you running the 64bit version of Windows 7?

OS - Are you running MythTV for any particular reason or feature? I had a quick look at Mythbuntu, but the lack of Bluray support in Linux is a big negative at the moment.

Using 32bit Win7 - hadnt checked the memory limitations. Just want to try out all the media centre options before setting on my final setup. Will probably do a full rebuild after an experimentation phase which may end up Win7 64bit.

ninja 12

Hi ,

An AMD 785 chipset will play 1080p no problem . The board listed below has HDMI and digital audio out . I'm using a 780 board (the predecessor of the 785) and watching movies on a 40 inch tv looks brilliant. Also , the sound is sent untouched to my amp , and my amp decodes the sound (DTS and Dolby Digital)

Mine has played everything I've thown at it, including 1080p .mkv files ripped from bluray . Using hardware acceleration takes the load off the cpu .Whan watching a 1080p .mkv , cpu usage is only 10%

Asus 785G mobo.


I'm using a 5050e cpu in my htpc and it has played everything I have thrown at it . The Athlon II I have listed is slightly more powerful than mine .

AMD Athlon II CPU

2 GB ram is enough , but if you're using win x64 , I'd get 4GB.

2GB Corsair Ram

This totals €178 + p&p.

For hard drives , I'd recommend the Samsung Spinpoints. I have mine set to silent , and they are pretty much inaudible.

jackrussell007

excellent.

thanks a million for that.

jackrussell007

got the nod off the boss for those few items ninja, cheers


thanks to all for your help

slegs

ninja 12 wrote: »

Hi ,

An AMD 785 chipset will play 1080p no problem . The board listed below has HDMI and digital audio out . I'm using a 780 board (the predecessor of the 785) and watching movies on a 40 inch tv looks brilliant. Also , the sound is sent untouched to my amp , and my amp decodes the sound (DTS and Dolby Digital)

Mine has played everything I've thown at it, including 1080p .mkv files ripped from bluray . Using hardware acceleration takes the load off the cpu .Whan watching a 1080p .mkv , cpu usage is only 10%

Asus 785G mobo.


I'm using a 5050e cpu in my htpc and it has played everything I have thrown at it . The Athlon II I have listed is slightly more powerful than mine .

AMD Athlon II CPU

2 GB ram is enough , but if you're using win x64 , I'd get 4GB.

2GB Corsair Ram

This totals €178 + p&p.

For hard drives , I'd reccomend the Samsung Spinpoints. I have mine set to silent , and they are pretty much inaudible.

Does this processor have a fan Ninja?

ninja 12

jackrussell007 wrote: »

excellent.

thanks a million for that.

No problem.

slegs wrote: »

Does this processor have a fan Ninja?

Yes , it's the retail box , and comes with a small heatsink with fan attached . The heatsink has thermal compound already applied .

FrankGrimes

ninja 12 wrote: »

Hi ,

An AMD 785 chipset will play 1080p no problem . The board listed below has HDMI and digital audio out . I'm using a 780 board (the predecessor of the 785) and watching movies on a 40 inch tv looks brilliant. Also , the sound is sent untouched to my amp , and my amp decodes the sound (DTS and Dolby Digital)

Mine has played everything I've thown at it, including 1080p .mkv files ripped from bluray . Using hardware acceleration takes the load off the cpu .Whan watching a 1080p .mkv , cpu usage is only 10%

Asus 785G mobo.

I'm using a 5050e cpu in my htpc and it has played everything I have thrown at it . The Athlon II I have listed is slightly more powerful than mine .

AMD Athlon II CPU

2 GB ram is enough , but if you're using win x64 , I'd get 4GB.

2GB Corsair Ram

This totals €178 + p&p.

For hard drives , I'd recommend the Samsung Spinpoints. I have mine set to silent , and they are pretty much inaudible.

Hey Ninja, that sounds like a great value setup. What TV tuners do you have? Just trying to figure out if the mATX case and board can support a setup where you have DVB-S and DVB-T tuners setup in a way to allow simultaneous dual channel viewing/recording.

ninja 12

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Hey Ninja, that sounds like a great value setup. What TV tuners do you have? Just trying to figure out if the mATX case and board can support a setup where you have DVB-S and DVB-T tuners setup in a way to allow simultaneous dual channel viewing/recording.

Hi ,
I'm just using a single card at the moment , a Compro S350 . It's a single tuner DVB-S card but also has an analogue input , so it can also be used to transfer from a vcr. It uses a standard PCI slot , and is a full height card. most of the dual tuner DVB-S cards are PCI-E.

I bought it because i recently cancelled sky (because of endless repeats on the movie & HD channels) and wanted a way of recording tv programs without resorting to bringing my vcr down from the attic .

Here's what my epg looks like with MediaPortal


I only use MediaPortal on my htpc , for live tv, music , movies , looking at photos etc. and it does an amazing job . It takes a while (and a bit of patience) to get set up properly , but once you do it once , it's easy to do again (in case of a reinstall).

Here's a link to my build thread I have on another forum - click here. It might be of use to yourself and other people.

I hope linking to another forum is allowed

any other questions , just ask .

bazwaldo

FrankGrimes wrote: »

Hey Ninja, that sounds like a great value setup. What TV tuners do you have? Just trying to figure out if the mATX case and board can support a setup where you have DVB-S and DVB-T tuners setup in a way to allow simultaneous dual channel viewing/recording.

My HTPC is lower spec than that and I have a hauppauge pvr150 (for composite from NTL) and pinnacle 7010ix (for FTA dvb-s and DTT dvb-t). I can record from all 3 sources at once without a glitch. And also view a recording at the same time. Spec = mATX, 2GB RAM, AMD Athlon II 1.8GHz, ATI 4350 and using Win7 Ultimate.

jackrussell007

ninja 12 wrote: »

Hi ,

An AMD 785 chipset will play 1080p no problem . The board listed below has HDMI and digital audio out . I'm using a 780 board (the predecessor of the 785) and watching movies on a 40 inch tv looks brilliant. Also , the sound is sent untouched to my amp , and my amp decodes the sound (DTS and Dolby Digital)

Mine has played everything I've thown at it, including 1080p .mkv files ripped from bluray . Using hardware acceleration takes the load off the cpu .Whan watching a 1080p .mkv , cpu usage is only 10%

Asus 785G mobo.




I'm using a 5050e cpu in my htpc and it has played everything I have thrown at it . The Athlon II I have listed is slightly more powerful than mine .

AMD Athlon II CPU

2 GB ram is enough , but if you're using win x64 , I'd get 4GB.

2GB Corsair Ram

This totals €178 + p&p.

For hard drives , I'd recommend the Samsung Spinpoints. I have mine set to silent , and they are pretty much inaudible.

hi folks
I'm back again, I need to buy a PS/U (myself this time:))

I bought the above components to fit my antec remote fusion case. just wondering what psu you would recommend. I suppose the priority has to be that it will have enough power and cables to suit the job and also be as silent as possible after that.

would this suit the job? I like the price and it has a couple of decent reviews too.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=337116

thanks

ninja 12

Hi ,
Unless you're going to use power hungry components , a good branded 450w psu should be enough , but it doesn't hurt to future proof yourself !!
I can't comment on the psu you included in your link , but it has good feedback on the Komplett site.

My preference would be for Corsair HX modular power supplies ,very reliable and quiet. I have a Corsair HX 450 (now discontinued) in my office pc powering an AMD Athlon II quad core , an ATI HD 5750 graphics card ,DDR3 ram and 1 hard drive , all running smoothly.

My htpc has a Corsair HX 620 , with an AMD dual core , 4 hard drives (so far) , bluray drive , lcd display , card reader etc.
I was using the HX450 in my htpc until i built my office pc , I just wanted more power as I will add a graphics card in the future for gaming.

Click here for a link to a psu calculator, it will give you a good idea of how much power you need.

jackrussell007

thats a handy link. cheers

I just coughed up for a corsair 450W. it seems to be loads big enough for what I'll be doing.
https://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=338686

ninja 12

No problem , glad I could help.