Cheap HTPC XBMC build - Less than £100

[wildest_jjk]

I need to make a decision then really although its difficult. Either I take a risk with the Pi and hope it will work with everything I need. Or I spend a little more and build a custom HTPC.

 

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Not sure whether or not its worth going with an FM2 socket instead of an AM1 in terms of future proofing.

 

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As far as I can see the Motherboard/CPU combinations are as follows:

• AMD Athlon 5350 + Gigabyte GA-AM1M-S2H (Mini-ITX) ~£65.98
• AMD Athlon 5350 + ASRock AM1H-ITX (Mini-ITX, no PSU needed) ~£91.99
• AMD A4-5300 + MSI A55M-E33 (Micro-ATX) ~£56.94
• Biostar A68N-5000 (AMD A4-5000) ~£55

This is a minefield because even second hand components don't seem to be much cheaper. Unless I'm looking at the wrong thing.

The case/PSU is still causing problems but I'm still looking. Not sure how worth it the Biostar board is to be honest.

 

[wildest_jjk]

Another good find! There's even a Powercool K3i which has a 120W PSU do you think that would be enough?

Thanks

 

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I'm using an Intel NUC (Celeron) in my bedroom, runs OpenELEC and works absolutely fantastic

Silent, only uses 17w of power and plays 40GB full HD 1080P rips flawlessly

You can get the Intel DN2820FYKH NUC for £92 from the tree place, and then just add a 30GB mSATA HDD, or if you're tight, a USB stick, and then a 2GB DDR3 SODIMM. Don't bother with the Ivybridge/Haswell models, they are considerably more expensive and use the same amount of power (17w). OpenELEC doesn't require much CPU power so save the money.

I prefer the mSATA though as its quicker

Worth looking into

I'm going to change my living room HTPC to one of these, from an Intel Core i3 2100T with ATI 5570 and 4GB of RAM

It's just overkill for running XBMC alone and takes up much more space

a friend has the Pi running OpenELEC and the NUC is leaps and bounds faster and will run whatever you throw at it within XBMC

Good luck

Thanks for your advice! I am still looking at the NUC's but I think I can build an HTPC for pretty much the same price or even less.

It depends what I prefer I guess!

Cheers

 

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My Am1 setup uses a 120watt brick but when running with 2 programmes it uses 22.5watts

Hey can I ask what case you use? I don't think I've asked yet.

Cheers

 

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The case i use is too big for under the Tv its the Coolermaster 130 Elite but coolermaster must have issues with making these cases as the ssd holes dont line up.

Ok thanks

2nd hand is the way to go

E8200 - £15
4gb ram - £20
P35 board - £15
5450 ati card - £25
300w xfx psu - £20

Any old cheap case will do, plus the cost of hard drives.

That's what mine cost about 2 years ago with parts from members market etc - runs everything fine 1080p, full HD audio, XbMC etc

Hmm if I can find the parts a lot cheaper than that then maybe. But I can't see me saving much really when compared against some of the newer components.

I still haven't decided!

 

[wildest_jjk]

What do you want to stick in the case ? I do like this case but no room for backup drive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mczLWLgNTvE

The case looks nice but probably on the steep side again to be honest. I don't think I can find it anywhere that cheap.

I think you're going to struggle building a machine on that budget, even with second-hand parts.

My advice: hit eBay for a complete PC.

You can pick up a dual-core whatever with plenty of RAM for under £80.

I'd lean towards AMD, as I've generally found their graphics performance is better for multimedia. Most boxes will be Intel, but you can add a card for £20 should a machine be lacking HDMI or if you're worried about gfx performance.

Thanks for your response. I completely agree with what you are saying. However as I have a couple of the parts already, such as SSD and RAM I think this is doable.