€500 home theatre

fletch

1. What is your budget? €500

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Home theater, t0rrents, multi-tasking, watching videos, iTunes, youtube, important it boots up fast, no gaming/video/image editing

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Yes, have 256GB SSD, keyboard and mouse

5. Do you need a monitor? No

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? 1080p but like option to run 4k

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? No

8. How can you pay? Any

9. When are you purchasing? Now

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? n/a

Was kind of thinking along the lines of the below...
Intel Core i5-4460 in-a-Box - €184
8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9 - €54
ASRock B85 Anniversary, Sockel 1150, ATX - €72
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 350W - €40
Zalman Z3 Midi-Tower - €36 (This is just an example, presume I can choose any ATX case and it should be fine?)
Windows - €20 reddit
Total - €406 (excluding delivery and geizhals discount)

Any changes/suggestions to the above, am I leaving anything out? I realise its probably overkill for what it'll be used for but I want it to be future proofed and fast. I get very impatient when a computer slows down.

Digital Solitude

An i3 is probably fine for your uses, and 4gb ram but if you want to overshoot go for it, my gaming rig has that i5 to bench how powerful it is. Future proofing PCs rarely ends up being a good investment.

You're going to want a hard drive for storing 4k as your average movie is going to be 100-200gb, WD Red 2tb is €90, or WD Blues are €77

Highly doubt Intel 4000 is going to push a 4k video either, so a small graphics card might be needed when you get there. Probably better do deal with that when it comes though.

Recommend a H81 or H87 board, or H97 if you see a good price.

Any ATX case will do yes

fletch

Digital Solitude wrote: »

An i3 is probably fine for your uses, and 4gb ram but if you want to overshoot go for it, my gaming rig has that i5 to bench how powerful it is. Future proofing PCs rarely ends up being a good investment.

You're going to want a hard drive for storing 4k as your average movie is going to be 100-200gb, WD Red 2tb is €90, or WD Blues are €77

Highly doubt Intel 4000 is going to push a 4k video either, so a small graphics card might be needed when you get there. Probably better do deal with that when it comes though.

Recommend a H81 or H87 board, or H97 if you see a good price.

Any ATX case will do yes

I'd rather spend the few quid extra than risk the machine being slow (have an Atom processor that struggles with anything above 480p on youtube and it drives us insane!). Can upgrade storage at a later date but have stopped hoarding lots of movies that I'll never watch again so I try delete them as soon as I watch em. What do the numbers after the H mean for the boards...something like this be okay?
http://www.hardwareversand.de/en/DDR3/179466/ASRock+H97+Anniversary%2C+Sockel+1150%2C+ATX.article

Intel Core i5-4460 in-a-Box - €184
8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9 - €54
ASRock H97 Anniversary, Sockel 1150, ATX - €79
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 350W - €40
Zalman Z3 Midi-Tower - €36
Windows - €20 reddit
Total - €413 (excluding delivery and geizhals discount)

Digital Solitude

The features of the boards is denoted by it, 97 is the newest. Similar price so might as well.

TerrorFirmer

Comparing an Atom and an i5 is like bringing a €500 note in your wallet because you were caught short with €10 the last time.

An i3 will be more than fast enough, even an i3 is arguably overkill for such simple tasks - these days even Intel's €60 euro Pentium line are lightning fast, even in games.

The difference is that Intel's Atom line were pretty crap when they first came out, let alone think about longevity. An i5 will not show you any gain whatsoever over the i3 for your uses. The only thing that will make a difference in this build is the SSD.

I'm still using a seven year old Core 2 Duo and 4GB Ram for my media PC and it's 100% perfect. No slower than my i5 machine for media.

fletch

Intel Core i5-4590 3.30GHz S1150 6MB - €228.21
MSI Z97 PC Mate S1150 Intel Z97 DDR3 ATX - €93.55
Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) HyperX Fury Series 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM - €50.49
Corsair 350W VS350 VS Series 350 Watt PSU - €29.69
Arctic Cooling ARCTIC F12 PWM CO Case Fan - €7.36
Delivery - €1.99
Total - €411.29

For the case I went for a Cooltek Jonsbo G3 - desktop - ATX for €91.89 delivered + €7 parcel motel charge.


Total - €510.18

All the parts arrived from dabs within about 2 days so no complaints there. I've never built a PC before but I was surprised just how easy it was. I had it all done in <1hr. I would never have attempted it but reading lots of threads on the PC Building and Upgrading forum gave me the confidence to do it so thanks guys
I didn't have to even reinstall Windows as I took the SSD from my old PC (which just had a clean install of Windows 10 done last week) and Windows sorted out all the drivers.

The machine is total overkill for my requirements I know that but it's so snappy compared to my old Acer Revo with the sh1tty Atom processor, I'm delighted

Eoinmc97

I would honestly go with a much better GPU than that of the i5-4590. I mean, if it's home theatre, why bother with an i5? Or an i3 even when the PentiumK does the same.
Or even, the best option IMO, an AMD APU.
AMD A10 7670K €110
AMD 68H FM2+ Mobo: €40
8Gb 2400Mhz G.Skill RAM Dual Channel: €50 (The APU receives a nice performance boost with faster RAM)
128Gb SSD: €50
1TB WD Blue for storage: €50
Any 300w PSU: €40
Any ATX case: €60
That's about €400 excluding Windows key if needed.

Now, if you wanna have an ITX build add on an extra €30 as the ITX board comes with a Wifi-card by default.

This would be more than enough for your needs, and probably better than the above builds.

Digital Solitude

Both myself an Terror had said the i5 was overkill Eoin? He's bought it now anyways :pac:

Cuddlesworth

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

An i3 will be more than fast enough, even an i3 is arguably overkill for such simple tasks - these days even Intel's €60 euro Pentium line are lightning fast, even in games.

That's a understatement. This is my media centre PC and it rocks anything I've thrown at it so far, all while duct taped to the back of the TV for 50 quid all in.

Digital Solitude

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

That's a understatement. This is my media centre PC and it rocks anything I've thrown at it so far, all while duct taped to the back of the TV for 50 quid all in.

Is the duct tape part of the budget?

Serephucus

Pi 2 + RasPlex = Done.

Or maybe XBMC. From what I remember RasPlex isn't great. Probably just Plex Home Theatre on a light Linux distro.

TerrorFirmer

An AMD Kabini €25 euro CPU would have been ideal as well! Just seems ludicrious to spend €230 on a CPU for a HTPC - there are people building gaming PC's capable of playing the latest games at 4K at ultra settings using cheaper processors! People totally under-estimate the power of modern processors. Compared to GPU's, CPU's haven't advanced remotely as much. My HTPC is powered by an 8 year old Core 2 E6550 which I picked up for the princely sum of €10. Works a charm. The real problem here was the OP massively over compensating after expressing dissatisfaction with the Atom CPU - a processor that was ultra low end even when first released. It's like being unhappy with a Toyota Yaris and upgrading to a 5litre turbo diesel.