htpc setup

psalliss · 21 Feb 2008 at 13:25

how does this look as a htpc setup. going to be for music and dvd storage. not sure about the blu ray player as dont have any disks yet and am wondering if its worth waiting for them to drop in price a little more.

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
X-Qpack II Micro ATX Gaming Case with 500W ATX2.0 PSU - (£76.36)
Akasa Serial ATA PSU Converter(£2.34)
Abit AN-M2HD nForce 520 Micro ATX (Socket AM2) (£58.74)
Pioneer BDC-202BK 5x BD-ROM + 12x12 DVD±RW Serial ATA (£88.11)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit Edition DVD - OEM -(£70.49)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ Black Edition 2.60GHz(£65.79)
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 NR PC2-6400C5 (2x1GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit(£70.48)
Samsung SpinPoint T 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM(£66.96)
Compro K100 Remote Control Upgrade Kit - Retail (£23.49)
Total : £535.62

psalliss · 21 Feb 2008 at 14:30

anyone please

craptakular · 21 Feb 2008 at 14:45

case looks rubbish. That 500 watt psu might be loud.

Antec Fusion Black gets good reviews:
http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15739

Motherboards:

There's 780G coming out very very soon. Theres will be better at offloading cpu for HD disk playback

cpu: fine

RAM: That ram u quote looks OTT and pricey:

GEIL is £35 - I have 6gb in various machines very good for the money

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-058-GL

Smsung HDD is fine, I prefer Seagates but upto you

Is you HTPC for blu-ray or standard def only?

Furton · 21 Feb 2008 at 14:49

I've got that motherboard but using an Athlon BE-2400 (2.3Ghz, produces 45W of heat max) and it runs all HD content and Blue-Ray disc without skipped frames at 720p, not tried it yet on 1080p but I'd be confident thinking the CPU and on-board GPU could handle it.

Edit: Go for 64Bit edition of Vista.

craptakular · 21 Feb 2008 at 14:51

Furton said:
I've got that motherboard but using an Athlon BE-2400 (2.3Ghz, produces 45W of heat max) and it runs all HD content and Blue-Ray disc without skipped frames at 720p, not tried it yet on 1080p but I'd be confident thinking the CPU and on-board GPU could handle it.

Edit: Go for 64Bit edition of Vista.

64 bit os is OTT for HTPC use. If you want to play back 1080p you will need a more powerful cpu. like the 5000+ your looking at. The 780G onboard graphics is better at offloading from the cpu, meaning you can get away with running a slower cpu.

Furton · 21 Feb 2008 at 14:58

Oxy said:
64 bit os is OTT for HTPC use. If you want to play back 1080p you will need a more powerful cpu. like the 5000+ your looking at. The 780G onboard graphics is better at offloading from the cpu, meaning you can get away with running a slower cpu.

WTF? Over the top, it's simply more future proof, there's no reason not to get 64Bit Vista if your CPU supports it.

craptakular · 21 Feb 2008 at 15:01

Furton said:
WTF? Over the top, it's simply more future proof, there's no reason not to get 64Bit Vista if your CPU supports it.

Drivers and codecs aren't as stable. The only benefit to owning a 64 bit os is 4gb+ ram support, which you wont need in a HTPC. Theres not a lot of speed difference.

psalliss · 21 Feb 2008 at 15:08

unfortunatly that case is the largest i can fit, not ideal.

will be just for sd stored onto the hd at first then blu ray films later.

cheers what benefits would 64 bit provide from vista

craptakular · 21 Feb 2008 at 15:12

psalliss said:
unfortunatly that case is the largest i can fit, not ideal.

will be just for sd stored onto the hd at first then blu ray films later.

cheers what benefits would 64 bit provide from vista

64 bit = no benefit in my eyes. You will never need 4gb ram so I would stick to 32 bit for your HTPC.

Have u considered a SG01B or SG02B both look a lot smarter

Furton · 21 Feb 2008 at 15:14

Oxy said:
Drivers and codecs aren't as stable. The only benefit to owning a 64 bit os is 4gb+ ram support, which you wont need in a HTPC. Theres not a lot of speed difference.

Drivers and Codecs are just as stable as 32bit drivers, my HTPC runs everything throw at it without a single hicup, all it needs are 64bit nVidia drivers and Vista Codec Package 64bit components and it plays everything without a single problem.

The argument of 64bit drivers not stable is not valid anymore.

Wossi · 21 Feb 2008 at 16:07

Furton said:
Drivers and Codecs are just as stable as 32bit drivers, my HTPC runs everything throw at it without a single hicup, all it needs are 64bit nVidia drivers and Vista Codec Package 64bit components and it plays everything without a single problem.

The argument of 64bit drivers not stable is not valid anymore.

Ditto, I use vista home premium 64 bit on my htpc and it works well. If there are no 64bit versions of programs you need, you can still install most 32bit versions without a hitch.