Advice on New HTPC

[DaddyPig]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to update my ancient media centre that I built several years ago with a new build that can do full 1080p playback.

I'm looking for dual freesatHD tuners and a Blu-ray drive with as much storage as I get afford. My question to you guys is how powerful does the CPU/mobo have to be in order to handle 1080p, digital audio and recording two hd channels simultaneously. 

Specifically - can I get away with onboard Graphics and CPU like:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-E35M1-M-PR ... RM9NC33RAU

Or would I need to go with separate components. If so please recommend what kind of specs I should be considering...

[Scallica]

I recommend a Core 2 Duo or i3 processor.

I prefer not to use an on-board video processor. In the event your video processor malfunctions, you can easily pop out a PCIe video card and install a new one.

[newfiend]

I have an older system but it works fine for what I need. It depends on what you want the PC to do, encode videos, commercial skipping, any extenders in your home? I have a quad core q6600 CPU it handles anything I throw at it with ease. I can watch 1080p all day, blu-ray etc.. If I were to build one today I would look at probably an i3 or i5 processor.. I like dedicated graphics cards as well.. Really like the NVIDIA GT430 for HTPC use. I would suggest 4GB of Ram as well.

Sent from my SGH-i937 using Board Express

[Wolfshadw]

I've been running my HTPC on an AMD Athlon II X2-240, 4GB RAM, HD4670 without a single glitch. Records multiple channels simultaneously, Blu-Ray playback Netflix... the works.

-Wolf sends

See my full system specs to the left.

[Fleadh]

My HTPC runs an old Pentium D processor and plays blurays etc just fine. For a htpc the graphics card is more important then the processor IMHO.

[WarrenH]

For regular playback, without any intensive decoding, ripping, etc, the new i3 or i5's work extremely well. I suggest that you only need to consider a video card of you find the onboard lacking.
I'd suggest that a decent processor is more important than the graphics card as it will make the system more responsive and reduce delays. And as said, you can always add a video card, changing CPU may not be that simple.

[lithium630]

For regular playback, without any intensive decoding, ripping, etc, the new i3 or i5's work extremely well. I suggest that you only need to consider a video card of you find the onboard lacking.
I'd suggest that a decent processor is more important than the graphics card as it will make the system more responsive and reduce delays. And as said, you can always add a video card, changing CPU may not be that simple.

I agree 100%. I have an I3 system using on board graphics and have never had an issue with playback. You can add one later if you choose. I don't like the added heat and/or noise.

[wayner]

I would also recommend a Sandy Bridge processor such as the i3-2100. They cost about $120 and don't use a lot of power. If you aren't gaming then the on-board GPU should have plenty of power and if you really want you can add a discrete GPU later.

If you can wait a couple of months the new Ivy Bridge CPUs will be out from Intel and I believe that they will have even better graphics performance so you can go with that or take advantage or (presumably) price reductoins on Sandy Bridge CPUs.

The Ivy Bridge i5-3470T is expected to cost $184 and only use 35W of power. That should be very easy to keep cool with very little noise, and it gives you lots of processing power as it can run up to 3.6GHz in Turbo mode.

That's the other advantage of an onboard GPU as less heat = less noise which is more of an issue for an HTPC.

[AnnasDaddy]

Or you could save some money, and go with one of the new Llano cores from AMD. On a budget, the following would work really well. To be honest, I will only buy AMD CPUs as I feel Intel overprices their stuff WAY too much. Not going to be setting any lan speed records (pun intended) with this thing, but could do anything you would expect a HTPC to be able to accomplish.

AMD A4-3300 Llano 2.5GHz ($65 from newegg)
ASRock A75 PRO4-M FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX ($85 from newegg). Went with this mobo for HDMI out, and 2 PCI express 2.0 slots (1 for QAM tuner, 1 for CETON infiniTV x4 card)
Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) ($40 from newegg)
Corsair Force Series 3 CSSD-F60GB3A-BK 2.5" 60GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive ($100 from newegg)
HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 (0F12117) 2TB ($130 from newegg)
ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive ($55 from newegg)

You could probably reuse the old case and PSU, so didn't price those out...

For less than $500 bucks, it is a computer that will record over 200+ hours of HD content, play blu-rays, and do anything else you want.

[Ack]

Or you could save some money, and go with one of the new Llano cores from AMD. On a budget, the following would work really well. To be honest, I will only buy AMD CPUs as I feel Intel overprices their stuff WAY too much. Not going to be setting any lan speed records (pun intended) with this thing, but could do anything you would expect a HTPC to be able to accomplish.

AMD A4-3300 Llano 2.5GHz ($65 from newegg)
ASRock A75 PRO4-M FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX ($85 from newegg). Went with this mobo for HDMI out, and 2 PCI express 2.0 slots (1 for QAM tuner, 1 for CETON infiniTV x4 card)
Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) ($40 from newegg)
Corsair Force Series 3 CSSD-F60GB3A-BK 2.5" 60GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive ($100 from newegg)
HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 (0F12117) 2TB ($130 from newegg)
ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive ($55 from newegg)

You could probably reuse the old case and PSU, so didn't price those out...

For less than $500 bucks, it is a computer that will record over 200+ hours of HD content, play blu-rays, and do anything else you want.

That's not a bad price for 2 TB of storage considering today's prices. I've never used Hitachi; how do you like it, had it long, noisy, work well, etc?

Thanks for any review type feedback you can give.

[barnabas1969]

Or you could save some money, and go with one of the new Llano cores from AMD. On a budget, the following would work really well. To be honest, I will only buy AMD CPUs as I feel Intel overprices their stuff WAY too much. Not going to be setting any lan speed records (pun intended) with this thing, but could do anything you would expect a HTPC to be able to accomplish.

AMD A4-3300 Llano 2.5GHz ($65 from newegg)
ASRock A75 PRO4-M FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX ($85 from newegg). Went with this mobo for HDMI out, and 2 PCI express 2.0 slots (1 for QAM tuner, 1 for CETON infiniTV x4 card)
Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) ($40 from newegg)
Corsair Force Series 3 CSSD-F60GB3A-BK 2.5" 60GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive ($100 from newegg)
HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 (0F12117) 2TB ($130 from newegg)
ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive ($55 from newegg)

You could probably reuse the old case and PSU, so didn't price those out...

For less than $500 bucks, it is a computer that will record over 200+ hours of HD content, play blu-rays, and do anything else you want.

That's not a bad price for 2 TB of storage considering today's prices. I've never used Hitachi; how do you like it, had it long, noisy, work well, etc?

Thanks for any review type feedback you can give.

I've had two Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB drives for 10 months. Nice and quiet, no problems. The 7K3000 is the 7200 RPM model.

[AnnasDaddy]

That's not a bad price for 2 TB of storage considering today's prices. I've never used Hitachi; how do you like it, had it long, noisy, work well, etc?

Thanks for any review type feedback you can give.

I have multiple Hitachi deskstar drives in my server, and my HTPC. Various versions/sizes/etc. Only problem I have ever had was a drive failing after well over a year of being pretty consistently read/written to. I am actually in the process of testing it to see if it is repairable with spin-rite. If not, I have read good things about the RMA process.

I am actually quite a bit happier with my Hitachi drives than other HDD manufacturers. Throughput is slightly higher, and just seem to have better durability IMO.

[Ack]

barnabas1969 and AnnasDaddy - thanks to both of you for the input on Hitachi drives. The recent price increases have me looking for the best bargains I can find.

[barnabas1969]

Yep... I'm definitely waiting until the prices come back down. I bought my two 2TB 7k3000's in March 2011 for $119.99 each. They are now $199.99. Last time I checked, they were selling for $249.99. When they get back down near $120, I'll buy two or three of them. I need some backup space.

[STC]

Weirdly I can get Seagate SATA 6 2TB Greens 64MB cache for $120 CAD at the moment. It seems a very reasonable price considering the current climate.
5900RPM / 2 yr warranty.
-Good for most things aside from a hardware raid environment.

[AnnasDaddy]

barnabas, have you checked the egg lately for prices? Also, do you need the 7200 rpm?

I was surprised to see that HDD prices have recently started falling again. Not quite pre-disaster pricing yet, but well on its way. REALLY wanting to put some money down on a couple of 4TB HDD, but might have to wait on that a bit.

Enterprise class drives are still WAY too expensive, but then again they always have been.

[barnabas1969]

Yep, I've looked at the prices. I still want to wait a while. I don't think they're as low as they will go yet.

I would prefer to have 7200 RPM drives. They're almost as quiet as a 5400, and faster. My choice may change if the prices don't come down much.

[Motz]

This is basically my HTPC:
http://thedigitalmediazone.com/htpc-cus ... -end-htpc/

It has the 4250 which can handle just about anything. But you can probably get a newer mobo for not too much ore.

[STC]

for not too much ore.

Well put! Quite apt lol.