HTPC advice

Kaelsin · 23 Oct 2013 at 22:27

Evening all,

I asked for some advice towards the start of the year and unfortunately I ended up being unable to act on the advice given.

I now would like to ask again now about advice regarding a spec for a HTPC and hoping you can help.

I'm looking to build a HTPC which will be used for XBMC, streaming and watching HD / Blu-ray movies – so I would like it to include a Blu-ray drive.

The HTPC will be running windows 7 as I have a spare copy.

I would ideally like to spend £300 but would be willing to push to £400 if it was needed and recommended.

Regards,

Kaelsin

Grimley · 27 Oct 2013 at 14:31

Hows this?

There are a couple of compromises here though.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A8-5600K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD560KWOHJBOX) £71.99
1 x Seasonic G series 450w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £64.00
1 x Silverstone Milo ML03 HTPC Case - Black (SST-ML03B) £56.99
1 x Pioneer BDC-207DBK 8x BluRay ROM / DVDRW SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (OEM) £55.99
1 x Asus F2A55-M LE AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £49.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £39.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £39.95
Total : £392.99 (includes shipping : £11.75).

You'll have to use the stock AMD APU cooler & they are not quiet.

Hard drive is 'only' (saying this when I started out with a 250 meg HDD many moons ago

) 500GB.

You could go lower with the PSU, but I swear by Seasonic PSU's & it should be very quiet, something you want in a HTPC.

Gav_881 · 29 Oct 2013 at 22:02

Have you considered a HP microserver, my N40l does all that with ease and the new one has an n54l processor in it which if i remember right is about double the power.

Drop in a bluray drive and a 5450 or similar and you will be laughing

Genoma · 29 Oct 2013 at 22:38

The microserver is well priced, but it's a little big isn't it. Also a shame it's all USB2.0, could do with a 3.0 for transfers.

Gav_881 · 30 Oct 2013 at 22:44

it sits in the tv cabinet so doesn't bother me, i think it has esata an failing that you could drop a usb 3 pcie card in it or use the esata on the back (mine has it not checked its on the n54l).

just depends how important pretty is to you i guess