What would you put in a HTPC?

T

Tahir2

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I am thinking of my first HTPC and if all goes well I want to be able to keep her for a year or so before doing any upgrade and two years before any major upgrades (like mobo change)..

So what do you think I should go for?

I have a tiny budget .. about £450.00 for the Case, CPU, memory, HDD, Optical Drive, GPU, Soundcard.

What would you spend the money on? Suggestions welcome... keywords are silence and upgradability.
 
not that tiny of a budget to me, but adequate. I suggest you base it on a micro ATX AM2 motherboard with a sempron 3000+ (cheap, good and low power). integratred video such as geforce 6150 would be fine but I don't know if you can get TV out or DVI out (you can add one of them on a metal bracket I think, you should check that out)

that way you have a PCIe 16x slot, DDR2 slots and the socket where we'll have the 65nm AMD CPUs and K8L. best in cheapness, low heat and upgradibility I think.

then try finding a decent and reasonably priced µATX case. This one, but on french site http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00030737.html , a rebranded textorm , seems good and accepts a full ATX PSU. You might want something else, but I'm glad we can have cheap µATX with normal PSU, I'll probably go this way with my next major upgrade.
 
Has to be a silver/aluminium desktop style case...maybe a Thermaltake Mozart or Bach.
As for the parts you mentioned I am sure they will come way under £450.

I have seen an M2 motherboard from ASUS with integrated graphics and a DVI out built in giving a good max res but I was interested in Image Quality for playback, hence the need for Purevideo HD or AVIVO.
 
Most of them have integrated gfx, sound, ethernet at least. All you need is RAM, CPU and a good TV card. You only need a GPU if you're gonna be gaming on it, but that's what's your primary machine's for.

I bought a cheap Shuttle for AthlonXP (looks like Shuttle G 2100B but I'm not sure if that's the exact one)for some ~250€. It has the VIA UniChrome chipset with integrated GFX and sound, which are nothing special but do the job since the machine is not for gaming. I already had my old CPU, RAM and the drives and just added the TV-card.
 
The reason I want a HTPC is to playback DVD and DivX's with minimum problems and maximum image quality, I don't think I would get that with an integrated solution.
If I wanted similar IQ as say an X1300/7300 with AVIVO/Purevideo I would be spending a lot more on an expensive DVD player.
I was thinking of hooking up an AV Receiver up to this HTPC too... what soundcard or just one with Opitcal Out?
 
Tahir2 said:
The reason I want a HTPC is to playback DVD and DivX's with minimum problems and maximum image quality, I don't think I would get that with an integrated solution.
If I wanted similar IQ as say an X1300/7300 with AVIVO/Purevideo I would be spending a lot more on an expensive DVD player.
I was thinking of hooking up an AV Receiver up to this HTPC too... what soundcard or just one with Opitcal Out?
Click to expand...

AFAIK S3 have better video quality then both big boys. Look for "Chromation engine" for explanations.

And you can always tuck in the low-line fanless gfx-card, so that's also no problem. I had a cheap-o GF5200 inside, but threw it out again since the integrated gfx has much better quality and speed for videos.
 
Seems like it does.. thanks for that nutball.
There is the ASUS M2NPV-VM to consider.

If I stick with Socket 939 I could go with the ASUS A8N-VM CSM

Processor wise if I want to playback anything in 720p would need to be fairly decent so I think I am going to skip the Sempron series and go for a fully fledged A64 and overclock her. Perhaps a lowly A64 3000 will suffice (I have my main desktop one at 2.5GHz when I need the extra power). I do not think heat would be a problem at all - these chips run extremely cool even on hot days.

I think for now, 512MB of RAM would suffice or should I go with a GigaByte?
 
Tahir2 said:
If I stick with Socket 939 I could go with the ASUS A8N-VM CSM
Click to expand...
If you stick with S939 then MSI do a nice little uATX 6150/430 board (K8NGM2-FID) which also has on-board DVI output. It's about £50 from Scam.

EDIT: Actually looking at those Asus boards they look rather nice. I came across the MSI board a few months ago, at the time it was the only one I found with 6150+430+DVI. Nice to see there's more on the market!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I just went into work on my day off no less for this project and have come up with the following so far:

Thermaltake Bach w/o Remote - £69.95
CASTHEBACHSL.jpg


Seasonic 330Watt PSU £39.95 - high efficiency and very low noise levels

Samsung DVDROM (spare drive)
40GB IDE HDD (spare drive)

Those four items are definites!

Still pondering on the following:

ASUS M2NPV-VM £64.95 which has connections for VGA, DVI, Component, Composite and S-Video! 6150 so has Purevideo support

AM2 A64 3000 Skt 940 £64.95

2x 256MB DDR2 cheap memory (£39.95)

I will need to source a breakout cable and header for SPDIF out as it doesn't come bundled with the above motherboard.

Or............

Abit A8V-E 3rd Eye motherboard (spare) without onboard gfx but has Optical in and out

A64 3000 Skt939 Processor - £64.95

2x 256MB DDR memory - £39.95

X1600 Pro 256MB AGP - £79.95

Main advantage of the first system is upgradability.

Main advantage of the second system is power.... will be able to play some games if I wanted to. I could go with an NVIDIA based card but none in stock.

What would you do?
I don't think I need a soundcard if I am going to eventually go through an AMP but may decide to after I have experimented with the onboard sound.

Haetsink and fan - I want to use an Arctic Cooling Freezer64 or swap with my main systems quiet HSF depending if it fits in the above case.

What would you do out of those two options?
 
Some possible reasons to eventually use an advanced soundcard with an AMP are:
- mp3 reconstruction, filtering and clean-up
- IIRC 20 bands of equalization per channel

But onboard sound should be ok for most use.
 
I wouldn't bother with 256MB sticks at this point, a single 512mb stick should be cheaper and make for easier upgradablity down the line.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
OK I am done - here is what I bought:

ASUS M2NPV-VM
Thermaltake Bach Silver
AM2 3000 Skt 940 Processor
1GB Geil DDR2 667 RAM 4-4-4-12 (was cheap)
Seasonic 330W PSU
Old 40GB HDD
Old DVDROM drive

I also finally bought myself a half decent gfx card for my main system (it went from a Cirrus Logic 1MB, S3 Virge 2MB to Voodoo Banshee 16MB)... I bought myself an XFX 7300GS which I should be able to use in the above media centre as soon as the new DX10 cards come out.

Will post pics once built....

I will also be adding a DVB-S card (any recommendations?) and possibly a soundcard.
 
pascal: I just tried the onboard HD Audio (Soundmax) and then switched to the Acoustic Edge soundcard I had in my other system. The Acoustic Edge sounds much better even though it is quite old now. The difference was amazing, and an Audigy 4 or better will sound even better I am sure.

If I do go for another card it will need Optical Out and I don't think the Audigy 4 OEM has that.
 
You are right, I was being lazy as I already have the Optical cable and have been using it for a while through an old Sony DVD/AMP.

Will look at sound at some point but for now the Acoustic Edge is staying in my HTPC.
 
There is one with DTS encoding as well which would be better, but still not as good as using full quality analog output. The plus of having digital out is for pre-encoded passthough to an external decoder, but encoding is just a compromise if your sound system doesn't support analog surround input for unencoded sources like games and such.
 
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