1st HTPC Build

npfman

npfman

npfman

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23 Jul 2011
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63
Hi peeps,

Newbie here, looking to build my 1st HTPC, been doing quite a bit of research so far and been reading through a lot of threads!.

I'm looking to build a HTPC for Windows 7 64bit and XBMC with the Aeon skin, it will be used for 1080p MKV's and MUST be able to bitstream HD Audio to my AV Reciever. The HTPC will also be used for web surfing and ripping the odd dvd and bluray.

This is what i am looking at going for so far, i want a quiet system (know the hard drives wont make it silent) but still.

Mobo/GPU - Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3 Zacate with HD6310 iGPU - AMD Fusion (ITX) - £119.98 inc VAT

CASE - Silverstone Milo ML03B Micro ATX, Black, Slim/HTPC Case with USB3 w/o PSU (ATX) [/URL]- £47.98 Inc VAT

BLURAY Drive - Samsung SH-B123L/BSBP 12x BluRay ROM / 16x DVD±RW Lightscribe SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (OEM) - £46.98 inc VAT

SSD - OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) [AGT3-25SAT3-60G] - £89.99 inc VAT

3.5" Drives x 2 - Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD204UI) - £119.98 inc VAT

PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) - £36.98

RAM - OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) - £23.99

Plan on using this with a Apple Wireless keyboard and Logitech Harmony One Remote

What do you guys think, will this be a good enough system, i dont want any stuttering or anything and want it quiet, what fans etc do people reccomend, do i have enough RAM?, been a long time since i built a PC 6-7years~

Cheers peeps

Nick
 
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Hi,

I'd remove the link to the case if I were you. You're not allowed to link to competitors.

That setup will work fine.
If you want to get it whisper quiet then I would have got a 60GB SSD and run windows / xbmc (the artwork/info will start to take up space, 30GB won't be enough)

You could then get a NAS enclosure for your 2x 2TB F4's and have that elsewhere.

As for cooling the case takes up to 4x80mm fans.
My fave 80mm's are the Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 80mm Fan - 3/4 Pin

Edit: You changed the drive, good idea. OCZ have been having problems with their drives, although a firmware update in June may have fixed this (haven't heard of any going recently)
Another option would be: Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB
 
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Hi,

Sorry about that!, ive removed it now, ive changed it to a 60gb SSD too, wasnt thinking right!. I have a NAS enclosure kicking about but it wasnt that quick when i tried it, would it make much difference to the overall noise if i have the 3.5" in the case?. Ill have a look at them cooling fans, would this setup be good enough for the Aeon skin?

Cheers for the quick reply

Nick
 
The drives will make a bit of a noise when they start to spin up and a hum when they are running.
(I have an F4 in my PC atm - and 4 in my NAS)
If you hang on a tick I'll check if the aeon skin is that more power hungry than the norm.
 
Given your case supports mATX (preferably one with a passive cooler) that'd be what I'd go for, just in case you want to add in TV-tuner card/wireless card later.

Also depending on the quality of your AVR & speaker setup I'd be tempted to pop in a decent sound card too.

Also that board supports single channel RAM and 2GB will be enough for Win7/XBMC.
 
Excellent!, Thanks very much for the replies, i was reading about the new LLano setup, looks good, will i have to get a cooler for it though?

I have an Onkyo 606 AV Reciever so being able to Bitstream DTS audio via HDMI is a must!, have a 5.1 system with various speakers, wharfedale monitors, yamaha front speaker and mission rear speakers with a mission sub.

Use my PS3 at the moment, vob the mkv files and save them on the hard drive, DTS is fantastic but its not bitstream as its an old fat PS3.
 
Yup, there are 4, here with a comparison here

The Llano chips come with their own unglamourous heatsink. Good news is that its the same size as the AM2, AM3 and AM3+ heatsinks so you can always getting a better one.
 
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I'll have to have a think about all this, will these all be able to Bitstream HD Audio out of the HDMI cable or will i need a soundcard?
 
AMD added this ability into their 5000 series graphics cards so it will be present in its 6000.
A6 - has a 6530D chip
A8 - has a 6550D chip
As long as the output from these new boards is HDMI 1.3a and above, and supports DHT it will work.
So from looking at it... DON'T get this GA-A75M-D2H board.

I'd say that the Gigabyte GA-A75M-UD2H looks like a winner.
 
Excellent, thanks again for the replies, the most helpful forum yet, might go for the LLano setup, what coolers do you guys reccomend, should i get some arctic silver 5 too?


l have found my NAS, its a D-Link DNS-323, would be a bit slow wouldn't it running the 2 drives in RAID 0 for 1080p MKV's though? 33mbps read speed, I have a Gigabit network.
 
As far as your NAS is concerned:
Step 1 will be to make sure its on the latest firmware: here
Older versions don't support 2TB drives.

As far as read speeds are concerned you should be ok with it. Unless the MKV's are encoded with a stupidly high frame rate.
What size files are yours? mine are around 9-12GB? which play fine off my NAS.

Coolers, it will have to be a low profile cooler to fit in the case you chose:

Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler
Scythe Shuriken BIG Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler

They should do, check though, the BIG version is 58mm tall.
 
Excellent, thanks again, i think ill go for the llano setup, try the drives in the NAS, if its slow and stutters ill put the 3.5" drives in the silverstone case, my files are about that size too.

Nick
 
npfman said:
l have found my NAS, its a D-Link DNS-323, would be a bit slow wouldn't it running the 2 drives in RAID 0 for 1080p MKV's though? 33mbps read speed, I have a Gigabit network.
Click to expand...

Striping your drives in a DNS-323 adds risk without reward. The low point of that box is the network interface which is pretty slow, although still reasonable for streaming HD content (12+GB files streamed from a share worked fine. Bigger files I do not know as I sold mine before I started ripping bluray ISOs). Striping the drives will see you still limited by the network controller with the risk of one drive failing and taking out all your data. Have a look at the DNS-323 hack forums and see if they have something like UnionFS compiled (Optware maybe) so you can mount the two drives and then union them to a single share. One drive goes out then the other is still in tact. If the data is important then mirror the two drives or mount a USB drive off the back for backups. I take it you have Fonz Funplug installed, if not take a look at that as it open up so many more options. I sold mine after running out of space and built a dedicated server as there was little cost wise that was better and cheaper than a (home built machine) server. Great little unit for the money.

RB
 
The Eco green drives dont make any noticeable noise during playback. I have 4 of the 1.5GB F3 Eco Greens in my HTPC & the only time they make some noise is when they first spin up for a couple of seconds, after that you cant hear them even if you mute the TV during playback. I only have 2 120mm Noctua case fans running at 800 rpm (everything else is passive) so it is not like there is any fan noise to drown out the sound of the drives, they are just very quite so I personally would not bother with the NAS if it is just to try and move the drives to another location because of noise concerns.
 
Which case has only space for 1 3.5 drive?

Thats what i was worried about with a NAS, i stream mkv's from my ps3 at the moment and they stutter, dont want anything like that with a HTPC.

Think i am going to go for the LLano setup with the scythe cooler, can anyone reccomend a case that will fit this setup with a 2.5" SSD, 2 3.5" hard drives and a Bluray 5.25"?, what cases you peeps have?

Thanks again

Nick
 
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Hi again,

Ive decided to go for the LIAN LI PC-C37 case.

It will take 1 x 3.5" drive and 1 x 2.5" drive and i will use the 5.25" space for another 3.5". with some brackets obviously.

Only thing im unsure about is whether to go for the Llano or Zacate setup, both can bitstream DTS to my reciever (i think!), but can both take advantage of XBMC's dxva?, all i want is smooth 1080p mkv playback, no stuttering and smooth XBMC Aeon use, what would be the advantages over going LLano rather than Zacate?

Llano:-

Gigabyte GA-A75M-UD2H AMD A75 £85.20 inc VAT

Scythe Shuriken BIG Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler £31.99 inc VAT

AMD Llano A6-3650 2.60GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor £84.98 inc VAT

over the Zacate setup:-

Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3 Zacate with HD6310 iGPU £119.98 inc VAT


Cheers

Nick
 
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