Spec me a media centre

[chriscpritchard]

Hi guys,

I know you're probably sick of threads like this - I need to look at building a media centre PC for someone, the basic requirements are:

Small (ish) form factor
HDMI and optical audio outputs
Blu Ray drive (ideally) or DVD/CD Drive
powerful enough to play HD content, whilst ripping a CD in the background
Runs XBMC (not fussed about OS, can be windows or linux) or other decent media centre
A remote control

Price wise - ideally as cheap as possible, but possible upgrades would be nice!

Thanks!

 

[Reaper 392]

are you going to need a lot of hard drive space with this (2TB+). if you are then the i5 2300 home server with some modifications may end up being a cheaper alternative than a self build
(if you ask in the customer service i believe they can change the case, DVD drive, RAM and PSU to whatever you want it to be)

 

[chriscpritchard]

are you going to need a lot of hard drive space with this (2TB+). if you are then the i5 2300 home server with some modifications may end up being a cheaper alternative than a self build
(if you ask in the customer service i believe they can change the case, DVD drive, RAM and PSU to whatever you want it to be)

Was thinking 3TB HDD, looking on OcUK, http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-069-OP&groupid=43&catid=2211&subcat= looks to be pretty good, but it needs to have a bigger hard drive, will have to phone up and see if they can do that!

 

[chriscpritchard]

Having looked around a bit, was thinking of one of the 2 following specs - all using the built in intel HD 2000 GFX, and a spare power supply I have


Antec Fusion Remote HTPC Media PC Case - Black
Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
Asus P8H61-I Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 5400RPM - OEM
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
(total cost £523.71)


Antec Fusion Remote HTPC Media PC Case - Black
Intel Core i5-2500 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
Asus P8H67-M PRO Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 MicroATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION **
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive
OcUK Professional 2.5" to 3.5" SSD Adaptor Plate - Black
Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 5400RPM - OEM
LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (OEM)
(£801.47, with SSD and blu ray drive)

 

[andy_mk3]

Seems like a lot of money to me, and overkill on the CPU and memory for sure.

Antec Fusion Remote HTPC Case - Black
Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
Asus P8H61-M Intel H61 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6450 HM 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive
(£545.82)