£1000 media PC spec

gazza0371

gazza0371

gazza0371

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Advice appreciated on spec, mainly regarding mobo, gfx and sound, for a media PC for maximum of £1000 - my thoughts so far:

- Quiet is important
- Ideally based around Zalman HD160XT case
- I already have the following that will go into the PC from another system: 4GB of Corsair DDR2 and Hauppauge Nova-500 tuner, Vista Ultimate license (not part of £1000 budget)

Main use of PC will be for connecting to a LCD TV for freeview and DVD, etc. Also plan to link in to my music system for playback. Probably use for a bit of surfing, but keyboard/mouse needs to be compact and easily tucked away.

I'm not too bothered about Blu-ray, so DVD R/W will be fine for the moment and I can upgrade to Blu-ray later.

Thoughts, comments ?
 
£1000 is complete overkill especially if your not bothering with HD, you planing to store DVD's and music on it, if so how many?

have u considered the Zalman HD160+ much cheaper, and i think it looks better, do u need that extra screen??
 
case = Zalman HD160XT+ Home Theatre PC £387.74
mobo = Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G £62.26
CPU = AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ 2.50GHz £51.69
os Dirve = Maxtor Diamondmax 20 80GB £24.66
Storage = Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB X 3 (raid 5) £338.37
PSU = Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 = £70.49

you have ram, and tuner, try the retail heat sink if it to noisy, get an after market one

is that copy of vista you have OEM, if so you cant use it on another system.

Total = £950.42 inc vat

but you can drop the hard drives down, and the case


EDIT: add a drive, £82 for a Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM, or £17 for a sata DVD-RW
 
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crazyDAJT said:
case = Zalman HD160XT+ Home Theatre PC £387.74
mobo = Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G £62.26
CPU = AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ 2.50GHz £51.69
os Dirve = Maxtor Diamondmax 20 80GB £24.66
Storage = Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB X 3 (raid 5) £338.37
PSU = Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 = £70.49
Click to expand...

PSU is overkill.

Why not C2D? - Cheaper, faster and cooler.
 
Thanks for the quick responses - I had a feeling that some might say overkill, so wanted to guage that - it has been crossing my mind whether to spec it down a bit and save the extra money towards the new TV.

@crazyDAJT,
Vista is a retail copy, so can happily use it on a new box. Also, I'm not planning on HD yet, but the system must be capable of either running it or a very minor upgrade (i.e. I don't want to have to replace the thing when I go HD).

The aim is to not store too much on the box itself in terms of DVDs, music, etc, but to use network storage and to stream it as appropriate, and maybe just use a small amount of local storage as a cache - I want to use N wireless if possible for most of it.

So, from what I can tell, the general feeling is that you don't need a monster of a spec for a media PC; AMD and onboard graphics/HDMI is fine ?

@DingleBerry, by C2D I assume you mean Core 2 Duo ? If so, what one would you recommend for a media PC and appropriate mobo?
 
@fobose - so I'm hearing Xbox 360 fromyuor corner ;-) It was something that I thought about, but in the end I prefered the idea of building a custom system - doesn't necessarily make financial sense, but that's just me !

@hp7909 - what price point is the 4850e expected to come in at ?
 
I cant believe people are saying use an xbox360 as a media center. Its a games console. a PC is far more "codec/container proof", can be built FAR quieter and is just so much more versatile.

My personal choice at this point in time would be a 780g chipset and the upcoming 4850e which I am hoping in the right configuration could be passively cooled.
 
£1000 is a bit over kill but the case is very expensive so it's not over kill. This is what I would do. No point going C2D as the 780G chipset does HD decoding very well.

2Tb for avi files should see you copying for a while.

Wireless can be dodgy and if you have a grand to spend then get the storage in the box. Anyway this is what I would do.

The case comes with a vista compatible remote and software so you shouldn't need a keyboard.

The only thing I've left out is a tv card and a cpu cooler(not sure which one will fit the case)

Edit - hold on just seen you have ram and tv card

10309460be8.jpg
 
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I would say a 780G board and an energy efficent 45W Athlon. For a Media Center PC at the moment this combo is ideal.

With that you can even playback BluRay without breaking a sweat. The 780G boards also come with the HDMI built on for connection to TV.

The Brisbane 45W Dual Cores are selling for 50-60 inc VAT so expect the 4850e to be around the same price.
 
gazza0371 said:
@Dingleberry, by C2D I assume you mean Core 2 Duo ? If so, what one would you recommend for a media PC and appropriate mobo?
Click to expand...

Yep, C2D = Core 2 Duo.



I'd say go for an E2160 (~£40) and a Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H (~£50) motherboard.

I have this combination and it works flawlessly for playing HD .mkv files through the onboard HDMI, although for Blu-Ray decoding you might need a seperate video card - The ATIs are supposed to be good for this and are only about £30.

:)
 
Hola!

You're going for the HD160XT+ case (just ordered one myself).

does anyone know what the story is with connecting up the touchscreen. I'd heard that you need dual output for you video, one to the TV/monitor and one for the touchscreen via a cable that goes back into your case.

If you go for onboard hdmi, do you still get a vga connector to do this with?
 
With that case I would keep the files stored locally, therefore you wont have any bandwidth problems, maybe use another storage solution as back up, (this is what i plan to do as running cable can be a problem. back up at say 4am in the morning every day. using wake on lan (assuming your going to keep your HTPC in standby)

that motherboard is very good as it does proper decoding of HD stuff, so fo the future you can just get a BR drive and you will be good as ready. unfortunately you wont have any sata ports left for upgrades, but 2TB across 3 drives, should see you until 2TB drives are out
 
squidgey said:
Hola!

You're going for the HD160XT+ case (just ordered one myself).

does anyone know what the story is with connecting up the touchscreen. I'd heard that you need dual output for you video, one to the TV/monitor and one for the touchscreen via a cable that goes back into your case.

If you go for onboard hdmi, do you still get a vga connector to do this with?
Click to expand...

you need one output for you TV, one for the touch screen, with most new graphics cards you will have 2 headers, with that motherboard you have one HDMI output (to tv) and one VGA output (to touch screen)
 
TBH, I'm re-thinking and might drop down to the HD160+ case - save myself close to £200 and spend that on a better TV. It seems a bit excessive to have the case cost as much as what is inside it (but it does look nice!).

Anyone know when the AMD 4850e is due on the shelves so to speak ? It sounds ideal for a quiet system
 
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