Can someone check these HTPC specs?

Shadowness · 4 Jun 2013 at 13:27

I know it's another HTPC thread, but I'd be great full if someone could just confirm these components all work together etc..It's been a while since I've built a custom PC! And if they'll fit in the case.

And is anything overkill, or not beefy enough? I'll only use it to store and play HD videos, up to 1080p for display on my GT50 Plasma.

Thanks

Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD30EZRX) HDD £99.98

ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £59.99

Silverstone Milo ML03 HTPC Case - Black (SST-ML03B) £56.99

AMD A6-5400K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor (AD540KOKHJBOX) £47.99

Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £43.99

Thermalright AXP-100 ITX & HTPC CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £39.95

TeamGroup Elite 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED34096M1600HC11DC) £29.99

XSPC K2 Thermal Compound 1.5g £4.99

Total : £397.37

Jano · 4 Jun 2013 at 14:04

Looks ok to me. By the size of the hard drive im assuming you are planning on storing movies on this? In which case you may find the processer struggles a bit (or at least isn't exactly fast) encoding. If you have a beefier main PC you may be better off using that to do the encoding, plonk an SSD in the HTPC, and store all the movies on a NAS or external drive of some sort.

Shadowness · 4 Jun 2013 at 14:21

Yeh I was planning to store the avi's or mkv's on the HDD and play it straight from there (after setting up a source in XBMC).

Would that not be the best way to do it then?

Tackle_Berry · 4 Jun 2013 at 14:35

Why not just get a HP Microserver, mine cost around £130 after cashback (not sure if promostion is still on) also comes with a 250GB HDD then bought a cheap low profile graphics card with built in hdmi audio for around £35. I run Win7 on it and XBMC. I encode on my main pc and then drop the .MKV on this. It plays 1080p .mkv and .m2ts video fine with no lag.

Also has room for a total of 5 HDD's I got 4x3TB Reds in mine plus the 250 that comes with.

*Edit, also upgraded to 8GB ram, can't remember what it cost but it was pretty cheap.

Shadowness · 4 Jun 2013 at 14:40

Hmmm ok. Can you post a link to it please?

All I want is something to store and play videos, as my smart TV will do Netflix and iplayer etc.

So a HTPC would be overkill for this?

Tackle_Berry · 4 Jun 2013 at 14:48

Well you will just be using a HP Microserver as a HTPC, just works out a lot cheaper with more headroom for 3.5 hard drives, and may be cheaper on the electric bill too.

Loads of people on here have them for different things but pretty common to be used a HTPC too.

Here is the thread on the microserver (posted in server section of forums)
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18216324&page=196

Here is the garphics card I used:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-259-AS