advice on this HTPC spec please

Flare

Flare

Flare

Soldato
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Me and my dad are wanting more 'technology' in the lounge and have wanted a HTPC for a while so i quickly put this spec together based what ive seen on another thread:


Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G Micro-ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard /any other mobo recommendations?
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000 3.10GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM
Sony BDU-X10S Blu-Ray Reader Serial-ATA Drive
Samsung SH-S223Q/RSMN 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter
Corsair XMS2 4GB DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB)

That comes to £263


I really have no idea how good any of these components are so could someone please give some recommendations.

OR Completely scrap all the components i have listed and spec me what you beleive to be the best sub £500 HTPC money can buy :)

I am aware there is no graphics card, this is because i have no idea as to what sort is needed, so could someone please recommend one for a 42" 1080P plasma.
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4850 "XXX Edition" 512MB maybe? or is that overkill for the given spec? if so please recommend replacement components that wont bottleneck.
Also could someone please recommend a decent case that is really good looking?
The overall budget is around £500 although lower is better if it wotn compromise performance.

Thanks in advance,

Flare.
 
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I used the Antec NSK 2480 for my HTPC, I think it looks very smart.

HTPC%20640x480.jpg


I thought the layout was quite good also:

HTPC%201%20640x480.jpg


Will you be playing games on your HTPC? If not, there is no need for a dedicated graphics card, the 780G's onboard graphics is more than capable for HD playback. You could always drop to one of the more energy efficient CPU's too (4850e or 5050e).

I went with Intel for my build and have been very pleased with it.
 
Thanks fobose and mp260767.

Thats a nice case fabose.

And no it wouldnt be used for gaming, may add a blu ray drive though one day.
Thanks for that tip on the cpu :)

By the way, how does it work with having a sky+HD box and a HTPC, do they both run completely independantly or what?

My dad has just installed apple TV which will be pretty pointless when we get a HTPC but he did get it for free so its all gravy :D
We're are planning on getting this lil beauty as well:
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/products/data_hdpvr.html
 
I cant help with sky as I dont have it, I dont even have a freeview card in my HTPC as the reception is so crap in the current house I am staying in. Everything is streamed across the network from my main PC instead.

That sony blu-ray drive you have in your spec comes with powerDVD which will give you the codec required to watch blu-ray smoothly on your HTPC. You need to tick hardware acceleration in the powerDVD options, this will make use of the intergrated graphics and give you smooth HD playback.

As most of my movies are .mkv 1080p files now, I installed powerDVD, Haali media splitter and AC3 filter. I use media player classic to watch them in (MPC uses the powerDVD codec), this has given me smooth results in watching 1080p :)

I hope that helps you get everything set up and working pretty quickly.
 
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