Building a budget HTPC

buckeejit · 5 Jun 2012 at 12:59

I've been reading a few posts on here and I posted a spec me a media player thread earlier but I'm really interested in building a HTPC. I've never built a PC or anything before so want to have a go

Can anyone recommend how much minimum I could make one for? I'm on a tight budget lol.

I've seen mentions of tv tuners previously and not sure if these are needed? It would be great if someone could post a rought list of items to give me an idea for what is needed

It's for watching tv eps and movies from a HD and streaming Netflix.

Schizophonic · 5 Jun 2012 at 13:08

If your streaming HD content you can get away with using an onboard GPU, but if your going to download your content you will need a dedicated GPU or a high end CPU to help with the processing.

buckeejit · 5 Jun 2012 at 13:13

Schizophonic said:
If your streaming HD content you can get away with using an onboard GPU, but if your going to download your content you will need a dedicated GPU or a high end CPU to help with the processing.

I'll be downloading everything onto my current PC, transfer to HD and then watch on the HTPC if that makes sense? So, I'll be able to get away with an onboard GPU? Am I right in saying that it'll be better to get a motherboard with an HDMI slot as it were rather than a graphics card with HDMI? Sorry, I'm new to building lol.

Schizophonic · 5 Jun 2012 at 13:21

So your not streaming off the internet? You already have the movies / TV shows on your Hard drive? If so then you will need toget a dedicated GPU. Is the HTPC going into a TV only? Your not thinking of connecting it to an AMP or receiver are you?

buckeejit · 5 Jun 2012 at 13:26

Schizophonic said:
So your not streaming off the internet? You already have the movies / TV shows on your Hard drive? If so then you will need toget a dedicated GPU. Is the HTPC going into a TV only? Your not thinking of connecting it to an AMP or receiver are you?

I was looking at Netflix also mate but it's not essential as I suppose I could just use my PS3. Nope, just connected via a switch that is connected to my Logitech Z-5500 speakers so I'll need optical out to connect to the HTPC if that can be done?

Schizophonic · 5 Jun 2012 at 13:32

If your looking to put up to your speakers then most motherboards have onboard optical out

buckeejit · 5 Jun 2012 at 13:58

Schizophonic said:
If your looking to put up to your speakers then most motherboards have onboard optical out

Thanks

So, would I need:

Case
Motherboard (using onboard graphics)
RAM
Tv Tuner?

Schizophonic · 5 Jun 2012 at 14:26

CPU / Hard drive

If your looking for a motherboard the Micro ATX version might serve your purpose as its smaller to go in a traditional HTPC case. Min of 2GB ram will be good, dont gotget to get a wireless and keyboard combo. The keyboard with onboard mouse is the better option.

How are you going to attach this to your network? Is there a CAT5 cable avliable to connect to the modem / router or you going wireless?

buckeejit · 5 Jun 2012 at 14:31

Schizophonic said:
CPU / Hard drive

If your looking for a motherboard the Micro ATX version might serve your purpose as its smaller to go in a traditional HTPC case. Min of 2GB ram will be good, dont gotget to get a wireless and keyboard combo. The keyboard with onboard mouse is the better option.

How are you going to attach this to your network? Is there a CAT5 cable avliable to connect to the modem / router or you going wireless?

I was looking at a Micro ITX motherboard there, looks dead on.

Route is 2 floors down and I already have an ethernet cable stretched so I think wireless would be best otherwise my mum would take a heart attack. So I assume I would need some sort of wireless card?

So,

Case
CPU
Micro ITX Motherboard (or is it ATX?)
RAM (2GB)
Hard drive
Keyboard/mouse
Wireless Network card/adapter

Is that everything? Is a TV Tuner necessary? What it's for? Just watching TV?

Schizophonic · 5 Jun 2012 at 14:34

Do you have an actual TV in the room its going in? if so then there is no point. Your HTPC will serve its purpose as a media player.

Becareful with wireless, if your streaming HD content (not the low def HD where the bitrate is something like camera quality) but if your going to stream of High def (proper Blue-ray rips) then you need a LAN cable to cope with the data stream.

buckeejit · 5 Jun 2012 at 14:38

Schizophonic said:
Do you have an actual TV in the room its going in? if so then there is no point. Your HTPC will serve its purpose as a media player.

Becareful with wireless, if your streaming HD content (not the low def HD where the bitrate is something like camera quality) but if your going to stream of High def (proper Blue-ray rips) then you need a LAN cable to cope with the data stream.

Okay. God, so the only way is by a cable then? I'll have to see if I can run it downstairs.

buckeejit · 5 Jun 2012 at 14:40

Will the onboard HDMI etc work without a GPU?

I have a new Hardrive. Does the following look okay?

Lian Li PC-Q09FB Mini-ITX HTPC Chassis - Black Lian Li PC-Q09FB Mini-ITX HTPC Chassis - Black £76.99

Asus P8H61-I Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard Asus P8H61-I Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £69.95

Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit

OcUK Swift 500W V2 Silent Power Supply OcUK Swift 500W V2 Silent Power Supply £19.99

buckeejit · 5 Jun 2012 at 22:50

If connecting via a cable instead of using wireless, how do I get content from my external HD that has all the movies on it? My PC is connected via ethernet at the min. Sorry for the stupid question

R088ieS86 · 5 Jun 2012 at 23:00

You could plugg your External HDD directly into your media pc, or you could setup up the external HDD to be shared and then use the software on your media PC to access it over the network.

What software you using for play back?

The above build will be ok, but you don't need to buy that cheap PSU because the Lian Li case you have chosen has a PSU supplied with it.

You will also need a CPU with that board, something like the Intel Pentium G620

The onboard GPU isn't amazing, but with the latest firmware updates and drivers it will play back 1080p @ very close to 23.976fps which is what they are made at, whilst keeping power consumption low. And yes, the HDMi will be powered from the onchip GPU in the pentium.

buckeejit · 5 Jun 2012 at 23:04

R088ieS86 said:
You could plugg your External HDD directly into your media pc, or you could setup up the external HDD to be shared and then use the software on your media PC to access it over the network.

What software you using for play back?

The above build will be ok, but you don't need to buy that cheap PSU because the Lian Li case you have chosen has a PSU supplied with it.

You will also need a CPU with that board, something like the Intel Pentium G620

The onboard GPU isn't amazing, but with the latest firmware updates and drivers it will play back 1080p @ very close to 23.976fps which is what they are made at, whilst keeping power consumption low. And yes, the HDMi will be powered from the onchip GPU in the pentium.

Thanks for that... I understand a bit more now lol. I would ideally like to share the drive as it's constantly updated with movies etc. but would it need to be via wireless then? What about streaming bluray files over wireless? Will it work?

pepp77 · 5 Jun 2012 at 23:08

Schizophonic said:
So your not streaming off the internet? You already have the movies / TV shows on your Hard drive? If so then you will need toget a dedicated GPU. Is the HTPC going into a TV only? Your not thinking of connecting it to an AMP or receiver are you?

No you won't need a dedicated GPU in this scenario.

My HTPC is a G620 on a H67 motherboard using the onboard HDMI port for both video (1080P) and Audio (inc DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD) and this connects via an Onkyo amp to the 42" HDTV.

Heck even my mums HTPC that I built her 18 months ago has no issue playing any 1080p videos using its onboard and thats a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G Motherboard with a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ CPU.

There are some potential reported issues with 24p playback with onboard GPUs but I have never noticed anything to affect my viewing.

413x · 5 Jun 2012 at 23:09

Would an amd llano not be better if you aren't getting a dedicated gpu?

I have an Intel Htpc i3, but if I wasn't using a dedicated gpu I would have got the amd

R088ieS86 · 5 Jun 2012 at 23:14

Would an amd llano not be better if you aren't getting a dedicated gpu?

mITX FM1 boards aren't cheap

What about streaming bluray files over wireless? Will it work?

If its wireless N then you can do it, but you may notice that occasionally your films will start to buffer if the signal drops.
I would go powerline before wireless.

Heck even my mums HTPC that I built her 18 months ago has no issue playing any 1080p videos using its onboard and thats a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G Motherboard with a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ CPU

That has an onboard HD 3200 chip so it would easily handle 1080p, the CPU would be doing very little.

413x · 5 Jun 2012 at 23:19

R088ieS86 said:
mITX FM1 boards aren't cheap

If its wireless N then you can do it, but you may notice that occasionally your films will start to buffer if the signal drops.
I would go powerline before wireless.

That has an onboard HD 3200 chip so it would easily handle 1080p, the CPU would be doing very little.

Wow, didn't realise quite how small mitx was! Scratch my idea!

krooton · 6 Jun 2012 at 09:11

Consider second hand MITX?

I got a dual core Atom 330 mobo cheap second hand (£30), a £60 MITX case with PSU, 2GB RAM I had knocking about and a 2TB drive I got for my birthday.

With a little tweaking it plays 1080p mkvs with no issue.