HTPC Media centre for under £500

Stinky · 2 Mar 2009 at 00:02

Hi all,

im after a HTPC setup but have only £500 at a big push to spend. ideally im after something for £400 or less.

any help would be much appricated

jak731 · 2 Mar 2009 at 00:06

hows this as a starting point?

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus M3N78-VM NVIDIA 8200 (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £54.99
(£63.24) £54.99
(£63.24)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200 2.70GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £44.99
(£51.74) £44.99
(£51.74)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £16.99
(£19.54) £16.99
(£19.54)

needs at least

PSU
Case
optical drives
HDD

The Deuce · 2 Mar 2009 at 10:16

jak731 said:
hows this as a starting point?

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus M3N78-VM NVIDIA 8200 (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £54.99
(£63.24) £54.99
(£63.24)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200 2.70GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £44.99
(£51.74) £44.99
(£51.74)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £16.99
(£19.54) £16.99
(£19.54)

needs at least

PSU
Case
optical drives
HDD

ditch that chip and get an energy efficient one like a 5050e

RobK · 2 Mar 2009 at 10:42

I've just built one for that sort of price, with the following:

Antec NSK2480-UK 380W uATX
GByte MA78GM-S2H sAM2+ MoBo
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5050e, Socket AM2
Corsair TwinX 4GB TWIN2X4096-6400C5
Sony BDU-X10S 2x Blu-Ray Reader

That lot came to just under £300, but doesn't include a hard drive as I already had one. Also I'm using Windows 7 beta so that's free as well.

It seems to be a very popular combination of case, mb and cpu for an HTPC, and my first impressions are that it is very fast and quiet.

The Deuce · 2 Mar 2009 at 13:44

RobK said:
I've just built one for that sort of price, with the following:

Antec NSK2480-UK 380W uATX
GByte MA78GM-S2H sAM2+ MoBo
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5050e, Socket AM2
Corsair TwinX 4GB TWIN2X4096-6400C5
Sony BDU-X10S 2x Blu-Ray Reader

That lot came to just under £300, but doesn't include a hard drive as I already had one. Also I'm using Windows 7 beta so that's free as well.

It seems to be a very popular combination of case, mb and cpu for an HTPC, and my first impressions are that it is very fast and quiet.

can't go wrong with that set up, excellent choice

goujon945 · 2 Mar 2009 at 13:47

Agree with Deuce, v.good spec. With the left over cash you could get a 3rd party heatsink too, my mate just got a mini ninja that he can run passive no probs. Gotta love cool and quiet!

RobK · 2 Mar 2009 at 14:49

I was thinking about getting a mini ninja but I don't think I will as the standard AMD cooler is very quiet anyway. I'm only running one of the 120mm case fans and the CPU temp at idle is about 29C.

You could also save money by only getting 2GB RAM. I doubt it needs 4GB at all but it's so cheap I thought what the heck.

Stinky · 2 Mar 2009 at 20:03

hi all thanks for all this

the 5050e chip i cant seem to find, am i being stupid??? lol

RobK · 2 Mar 2009 at 20:08

No you're not being stupid, OcUK don't sell the energy efficient chips for some reason. Shame as it meant I ordered the whole lot from somewhere else.

The Deuce · 2 Mar 2009 at 20:34

could tell you where but I'd probably get banned, not that hard to find if you look around though.

goujon945 · 2 Mar 2009 at 20:37

Yeah just google 5050e and it will be in the links. Let us know how you get on with the build

Stinky · 2 Mar 2009 at 20:42

ah seems ive found one. around £50ish

are we thinking that this chip is going to be the ideal choice for what i want??

goujon945 · 2 Mar 2009 at 20:46

Yeah it's the current fave for HTPC's. It will handle 720p/1080p MKv's and blu-rays no problem when it's used with a 780g motherboard. Its only 45w tdp too, meaning it uses hardly any power and runs really cool. Not the best for gaming mind you

Stinky · 2 Mar 2009 at 20:52

thanks.

now my next question is.....

is there a mobo that has on board HD support / thingy and 7.1 audio for around £50ish??
its been far to long since i did all this.

goujon945 · 2 Mar 2009 at 21:02

The 'MA78GM-S2H sAM2' mentioned earlier does. The 7.1 is not over HDMI though only the analogue ports afaik.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/home...-htpc-build-5050e-780g-mobo-antec-fusion.html

That is a link to a very detailed build using pretty much the exact parts you are looking at

Roalith · 3 Mar 2009 at 17:23

Fantastic, thanks guys. Looking to build something very similar for a friend. Had settled on the Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H, but was still wandering around the web aimlessly looking at different components.

Very useful

vorm · 17 Mar 2009 at 15:22

goujon945 said:
The 'MA78GM-S2H sAM2' mentioned earlier does. The 7.1 is not over HDMI though only the analogue ports afaik.

Doesn't this motherboard have optical audio out?

RobK · 17 Mar 2009 at 15:41

It does but you only get 5.1 out of it. If you want 7.1 or any of the HD audio formats you need to use the analogue outputs.

vorm · 17 Mar 2009 at 15:43

that's ok then. My Home Cinema amp only has 5.1

Yeggstry · 22 Mar 2009 at 10:44

RobK said:
I've just built one for that sort of price, with the following:

Antec NSK2480-UK 380W uATX
GByte MA78GM-S2H sAM2+ MoBo
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5050e, Socket AM2
Corsair TwinX 4GB TWIN2X4096-6400C5
Sony BDU-X10S 2x Blu-Ray Reader

That lot came to just under £300, but doesn't include a hard drive as I already had one. Also I'm using Windows 7 beta so that's free as well.

It seems to be a very popular combination of case, mb and cpu for an HTPC, and my first impressions are that it is very fast and quiet.

May I ask what hard drives you have in that? I'm looking at building an HTPC soon and I was thinking of a couple of 1Tb drives but I'm not sure whether they would fit in there.

Also, would you say its worth setting up RAID on a HTPC? My plan is that it would be a file server as well as an HTPC.