Building a HTPC: Recycle or buy new

dougieboy

dougieboy

dougieboy

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Joined
12 Mar 2008
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33
Hi there.

After spending hours thinking about buying Apple TV or some other media player for the bedroom, I have decided to setup a HTPC instead. I want it to stream movies on the home network and maybe (not sure) to work as a NAS as well. I have a HDD, so dont ned to buy that - but will have to buy everything that I cant salvage fron an old PC. Dont want to spend more than £150 and need a new case. Big ask, I know..!

I have an old PC lying around (unused) and dont know which parts I should reuse, as I don't know if they are too ancient and power hungry to do the job well in a more suitable case with a smaller PSU.

Also - if I keep these bits, how small a PSU can I get away with?

These are the bits lying around.
4GB OCZ (4 x 1GB) 1066MHZ PC8500
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
BIOSTAR P43-A7 Socket 775 Intel P43 Moboard
MSI 4850 1GB (OC)

Clearly - if I keep this MOBO, I will need an ATX case which may make things tricky with the wife! Micro IPX

All help and advice gratefully appreciated.
 
If its just for movies, then ditch the 4850, it's power hungry, spend £20 on a passive graphics card, undervolt and underclock the q6600 and you might be able to whack a passive cooler on it
 
You're really going to struggle to get something in budget I think if you go ahead and buy new. As cereal3 says your current rig is way overpowered and power hungry in an ideal world to be used as a basic HTPC. Have you considered getting something smallish like an Acer Revo at all? It won't have the large storage space to make it a NAS but won't have any trouble playing Blu Ray movies etc. They can be had for around £180-200 ish and you could sell your current system without too much trouble. (The Q6600 is still a very popular and sought after CPU). Not to mention mini-ITX HTPC cases are quite expensive.

If you wanted to go towards a custom built HTPC and NAS hows this, could fund it by selling off components from the spare system.

Yes I now it's way over budget and the case is expensive but can change to a cheaper one of your choice, although it's not that big can store plenty of HDD's so could possibly be used as a home server?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Lian Li PC-Q08B USB3.0 Mini-ITX Case - Black £79.99
1 x Gigabyte A75N-USB3 AMD A75 (Socket FM1) DDR3 mini ITX Motherboard £74.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £58.99
1 x AMD Llano A4-3300 2.50GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor (AD3300OJGXBOX) £46.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £31.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £19.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £344.44 (includes shipping : £11.25).



If you have a SATA HDD and optical drive, could save some there too.
 
I take your point - that does look like a much better solution for me. Didnt know that anyone would be interested in the old hardware. Will try to flog it this weekend and make up the difference.

Have a 2TB HDD and spare DVD RW drive that I can use, which would save a little cash.

Will have a look at that Llano based system. Passive cooling and quiet case should be considered in the bedroom I guess.
As you say Acer Revo or Zotac systems would be an alternative.

I guess with a Llano and Win7 / XBMC could I still play the occasional game?
 
I did something similar a while ago with my HTPC rig. I sold my Q6600 on the bay and got an E5200 plus some change, I had the advantage of a mATX board so more choice on the case front, you might want to look at selling your board and going mITX. For gfx I sold my 4850 and stuck in a passively cooled 5450.
 
My HTPC is an Abit IP35 Pro motherboard, Q6600 @ 3GHz, 4GB DDR2 and an 8800GT and a 430W power supply in an old Silverstone HTPC case.

It works wonderfully, the noise isn't too bad (although could be better), and all my media is stored on a separate WHS machine in another room.

Would I go for smaller/lower power - not a chance.

Would I prefer it quicker - yes, of course! For example, when loading the covers/details etc for the 200+ movies it can get a touch slow to read from the internal 500gb (7200rpm) drive (of which I'm only using ~20gb for OS/apps, the rest for recording TV from Freeview) - a nice ~60gb SSD would improve that responsiveness quite a bit though - I'd also keep the HDD for the recording of TV.

I've got a couple of games on there, and some games are well suited to sitting back on the sofa in front of a 42" TV, with the surround sound, and a couple of wireless Xbox 360 controllers :)
 
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