Hi, I am so out of touch with PCs and everything! I was wondering what can I get for about £490 all in. I would like to be able to play smoothly 1080p content and will possibly be outputting to a 1920x1200 monitor... is this even feasible for the budget I'm enquiring??? No OS is required.
Budget: £490 HTPC to run 1080p videos! Spec?
- Thread starter kbc
- Start date
No peripherals and no Windows needed! I do want it to be a micro-ATX setup though.
Just needs to be powerful ... within what I can get for under £500 of course! My current HTPC setup can't do 1080 content....
Ideally, I would like to use this case:
Lian Li PC-V351B Aluminium Micro ATX Cube Case
Just needs to be powerful ... within what I can get for under £500 of course! My current HTPC setup can't do 1080 content....
Ideally, I would like to use this case:
Lian Li PC-V351B Aluminium Micro ATX Cube Case
HTPC's are hardly my strong point, but I figure something like this?
Lian Li PC-V351B Aluminium Micro ATX Cube Case - Black £88.99
(£75.74) £88.99
(£75.74)
AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 640 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £75.19
(£63.99) £75.19
(£63.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD204UI) £74.01
(£62.99) £74.01
(£62.99)
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard £69.99
(£59.57) £69.99
(£59.57)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £65.99
(£56.16) £65.99
(£56.16)
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5550 512MB GDDR5 SILENT PCI-Express Graphics Card (H555HB512) £51.99
(£44.25) £51.99
(£44.25)
Samsung SH-B123L/BSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - OEM Black £46.94
(£39.95) £46.94
(£39.95)
Sub Total : £402.65
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £72.43
Total : £486.33
Added a blu-ray drive as I wasn't sure if it was wanted or not. That card can easily handle 1080p videos, and 1920x1200 shouldn't be an issue (as far as I know)
Lian Li PC-V351B Aluminium Micro ATX Cube Case - Black £88.99
(£75.74) £88.99
(£75.74)
AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 640 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £75.19
(£63.99) £75.19
(£63.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD204UI) £74.01
(£62.99) £74.01
(£62.99)
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard £69.99
(£59.57) £69.99
(£59.57)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £65.99
(£56.16) £65.99
(£56.16)
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5550 512MB GDDR5 SILENT PCI-Express Graphics Card (H555HB512) £51.99
(£44.25) £51.99
(£44.25)
Samsung SH-B123L/BSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - OEM Black £46.94
(£39.95) £46.94
(£39.95)
Sub Total : £402.65
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £72.43
Total : £486.33
Added a blu-ray drive as I wasn't sure if it was wanted or not. That card can easily handle 1080p videos, and 1920x1200 shouldn't be an issue (as far as I know)
+1 for Wayne's i3 setup, newer technology, energy efficient machine!
as to GPU 8400/8600/9400/9600 will do!
However I think you can buy second handed PC ~£250-£350 with E6xxx/E7xxx/E8xxx series GPU, which will be powerful enough for HTCP PC!
I bought mine for £140 (E6550/2GB Ram/350GB HDD/NVidia 8600 and it's great for media use)
as to GPU 8400/8600/9400/9600 will do!
However I think you can buy second handed PC ~£250-£350 with E6xxx/E7xxx/E8xxx series GPU, which will be powerful enough for HTCP PC!
I bought mine for £140 (E6550/2GB Ram/350GB HDD/NVidia 8600 and it's great for media use)
Hey angela 
As will either the Integrated Intel® HD Graphics on the Intel® Core™ i3/Intel® H55 combo or the Integrated AMD® Radeon™ HD 4250 on the AMD® 880G chipset . . . both designed to handle the trivial task of perfect 1080i/1080p playback
As will either the Integrated Intel® HD Graphics on the Intel® Core™ i3/Intel® H55 combo or the Integrated AMD® Radeon™ HD 4250 on the AMD® 880G chipset . . . both designed to handle the trivial task of perfect 1080i/1080p playback
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Does it have to be a HTPC? I know it sounds silly but unless you require the extra features a HTPC gives, something like a Networked Media Tank or Media Streamer would have no problem playing 1080p content from an installed hard drive or networked drive. Could easily be done for less than £200 with the Popcorn Hour or Western Digital options.
Just a thought anyways.
Just a thought anyways.
Indeed depends what you want for it. I bought a WDTV for my father and it does the job of playing 1080 perfectly from a external (haven't tested the network side of things) - Can't complain for £60.
For more advanced option the new Boxee looks very shiny for a media player and adds a lot of Internet TV options (BBC etc), youtube, and does an excellent job of grabbing meta data for your collection. Reviews have people streaming full 30GB blueray rips over to it without issue... shame its expensive at £200.
For more advanced option the new Boxee looks very shiny for a media player and adds a lot of Internet TV options (BBC etc), youtube, and does an excellent job of grabbing meta data for your collection. Reviews have people streaming full 30GB blueray rips over to it without issue... shame its expensive at £200.