Help with 300 ish quid htpc build

Dieseldes

Dieseldes

Dieseldes

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26 Feb 2014
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37
Ok so I have 2 htpcs at home both running Mediaportal which is great. The small bedroom unit is in a shuttle type case with an amd e350. It's fine for everything including full BluRay rips, at least until I try to copy files etc at the same time. My main living room htpc is an amd a10 6700 that I bought custom built from here in a big fancy Silverstone case that takes like 8 drives . Both machines have ssd boot drives. I have a hp microserver with Unraid for my movies etc.

Anyhow my father in law is big into his av stuff and has a room full of kit. When he saw what I can do with Mediaportal on my machines he is really surprised and is talking about buying one. I reckon it's best that I build him something but could do with some help from you guys.

So what I want is a pc with a case that will fit in with the usual av stuff eg amps etc. The case must be large enough to take an ssd boot drive and at least 2 3.5inch bays for his media hard drives. It must also have a 5.25 bay for a BluRay player. I'm thinking of yet another amd, apu maybe an a6 as this will be plenty for media and can be upgraded to an a10 if required in the future. Do these older cpu eg like my a10 6700 run in the new fm2+ boards? Would like to get a + board as it should be more upgradeable in the future. To start with 4gb ram should be OK. I have used 16gb vulcan team memory 2100mhz in my a10 and have had lots of problems with it. The first batch failed and wouldn't boot after 2 days with one of the cards installed at all. The replacement batch runs but the machine locks up and gives memory errors unless I down clock it to 1600mhz. So I might want to avoid it unless it's more reliable than it was 6 months ago.

Also a cheap 120gb ssd is a must. I can use a old 2tb green drive I have as his media drive. I also can give him the BluRay player out of my e350 as it's never used.

So I suppose all I need is.:
Case
Ssd
Psu low power 300watt?
Motherboard
Cpu
Ram
Oh a wireless usb mouse./keyboard combination, quite a big one as he will mostly be using a or remote I have lying around.

Anything I have missed? I can install windows 7 and he can pay for the key. What about cables and stuff? Does that all come with the case and motherboard? I'm thinking of building this as a present for him, hence why I'm kinda leaving it a bit tight but upgradeable by him once he becomes addicted!

Cheers des
 
Thanks Danny that looks a good setup. I wonder if 2 cards of memory would make the machine run faster by a noticeable amount? I suppose it leaves it easy to upgrade as is..
 
Thanks guys. I noticed the ram seems quite tall with the heat sink. Is that likely to be an issue in terms of getting everything to fit?

What would an Intel equivalent run me and would it be more or less upgradeable?
Cheers des
 
So many choices... Thanks again. I like that cooler master case as it can hold another drive and it's cheaper. Though the Silverstone does fit better with his availability kit. The amd stuff will fit in the cooler master case, right? Think I will sleep on it, but due to my experience I'm thinking amd may be the winner unless intel is better in some way I don't know?

Cheers des
 
Well guys I ordered the amd kit in your first post. I stayed with 1 memory stick and this can be upgraded later. Thanks for the advice. How much speed would i/he gain with a second memory stick to go 2 channel? Cheers des
 
An update. My kit arrived today. Well sorta. This is the motherboard that came with my amd cpu.


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-440-GI

So I need to talk to overclockers tomorrow. I plan on sending back the motherboard in the post tomorrow if I can get to the post office but will they send the correct motherboard on trust or will I pay for another one and then get a refund. I did order the correct board it is their fault so I hope they can help me. Who pays for post?

Cheers des.
 
Or should I buy an Intel i3 cpu? Will the ram and power supply I got from the amd list above fit and run this motherboard and cpu combo? Will it fit Ok? I haven't used an intel since 486 dx2 66 days. Would the Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) be good for htpc use with no problems with graphics and jumpy movies. He is a big av buff so I wouldn't want any problems such as the 23.9hz issue I hear some intels can't do.
I also don't want a separate video card. I could always sell the amd cpu....
 
Ok overclockers have seen me right by asking for the amd cpu back and I'm keeping the Intel board. I have ordered the Intel cpu linked above. Does it come with a fan and heatsink? This machine will end up as powerful as my a10 6700! Hopefully the graphics are OK....
 
Ok I'm and idiot. I opened the motherboard box tonight and took it out to fit to the case and it doesn't fit. On second inspection it's a full size board not an smaller one for this case. Last night I started to put the part code into the search function on the site and it brought up the smaller board which I thought I had. But if I look at the complete part code I have this. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-437-GI

So now I have a motherboard I can't use, I have a cpu I can use and have another cpu in the post that fits the motherboard that won't fit my case. :(

So tomorrow I need to sort this. I intend on sending back this board and the cpu that's in the post to me and ordering the original board I wanted and use the amd setup.

I feel like a right tube...
 
Well it's built and running. I got it to him over the weekend and he is very happy with it! I just need to get another hard disk for it, ideally a 4tb unit for home to get his movies on. The 2 tb unit I put in is already almost full with TV shows and movies.

Thanks guys!

Oh the keyboard tracker ball isn't great. It sometimes jumps and then doesn't respond. It's as if something is sticky in its mechanism. Anyone have personal experience of the board?
 
Hi guys. Just an update. I replaced the 2 tb seagate spinner with 2 3tb toshiba drives that I removed from my Unraid server when I switched to 4tb Hitachis so he now has more space. At the rate he is ripping his BluRay collection i may need to get another drive in there by next year! I made an adapter that places the 2 3.5 inch drives above one another so there is still room for another 3.5 inch drive over near the power supply were the 2.5 inch ssd is.

So I was at my dads at the weekend and he was messing with a talktalk youview box and a memory stick stuck into the Samsung tv to watch movies. My head started thinking of another htpc build for him! So if I was to build something similar for my dad would there be better prices or offers at the moment. I'm happy with the level of performance the a6 amd gives. Any thoughts?

Cheers guys, des.
 
Just had another thought. So I bought a second hp microserver there a few months ago to use maybe as a backup server. Really only got it as it was less than 100quid new delivered after cash back. So my cheapest option might be to add a graphics card to this and a hard drive. What graphics card do you guys recommend for the microserver taking into account it's small size and low power. Not interested in games just hd video. Cheers des
 
Another update. I found a good deal on another website, scan, for the hd6450, a 4 tb nas Hitachi drive and a branded BluRay player for 205 delivered s I ordered it last night. The microserver already has extra ram, 4 Gb total, so just needs these bits and a windows install on its supplied 250gb drive and away we go. I will let you know how I got on. Cheers des
 
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