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- Joined
- 6 Jan 2012
- Posts
- 115
Recently been thinking thinking of replacing my ageing Sony Vaio svs13 laptop, as while it has served me well it doesn't quite have the grunt to play some recent games at minimum settings. However while browsing and not finding anything that takes my fancy I've come across another option that could prove to be more useful to the house hold in general.
I've found a 2nd hand Origen ae s16t at a price that doesn't give me a mild heart attack, and was wondering about setting it up as a media server/emulator box in the living room, then using the stream in-home streaming service for when I want to scratch that gaming itch (i'm no where near as keen as I used to be) however I'm rather out of touch on hardware as it's been a decade since I last built a system.
The device will only be working at fairly low resolution (a 720p pico projector in the living room, my 1600x900 laptop, and maybe the gf's laptop which is somewhere between the 2) so hoping I can keep costs down on components and I'm considering using second hand previous gen components where I can though I'm open to buying new where the price to performance ratio isn't so large.
As a rough idea this is along the lines of what I'm thinking system wise:
Case: Origen ae s16t- Basically I need a case with a built in display so it can sit on a shelf like a stereo and media can be accessed without firing up the projector. As mentioned I've managed to get it below half price but I'm open to other cases (would especially like something smaller) if they have a built in display. Alternatively anyone have any ideas for mounting small displays to other cases, have been tempted to try a 7" USB powered screen with a zotac magnus en1060 if I could find away to make it tidy.
CPU: A new intel G4600 or used i5 6500? Both can be got for close to the the same price. I know some emultors care more about clock speed than cores making the G4600 viable but will I miss the extra cores to handle background processes? Recommended coolers would like to try and keep the system quiet
GPU: A gtx 1060 would probably be ideal but a bit more than I'd like to spend ideally, wondering whether to go for the 1050ti or whether and second hand 970 or 980 would be more value for money. I am also interested in trying to keep sound and power usage down abit so any advice in optimising this would be great. Oh card length needs to be <245mm though i think I can stretch to 280mm if I don't use all the hard drive slots.
Storage: Probably an m2. drive for o/s and programs if the motherboard allows and add mechanical drives for media as needed, again recommendations for quiet drives would be great.
Motherboard: Not really got a clue guess it depends on the CPU and if there's change in the case used. Built in wifi would be nice though I'm hoping to have it connected directly to the router being as its streaming to the rest of the network. any useful things to look out for here?
Power supply: Shouldn't need to be huge but again I'm out of touch with power requirements these days, would like to be as quiet as possible, would fanless be an option or would a fan be useful to aid extraction of heat from other components.
In addition to this hardware wise any hints for keeping noise/power consumption down would be gratefully accepted along with things I might need to consider network wise.
Software wise Kodi seems to be the way to go for controlling directly from the HTPC but not sure how to set things up so other devices can access music and video from the device via the network?
Sorry for length but thanks for any help that can be given.
I've found a 2nd hand Origen ae s16t at a price that doesn't give me a mild heart attack, and was wondering about setting it up as a media server/emulator box in the living room, then using the stream in-home streaming service for when I want to scratch that gaming itch (i'm no where near as keen as I used to be) however I'm rather out of touch on hardware as it's been a decade since I last built a system.
The device will only be working at fairly low resolution (a 720p pico projector in the living room, my 1600x900 laptop, and maybe the gf's laptop which is somewhere between the 2) so hoping I can keep costs down on components and I'm considering using second hand previous gen components where I can though I'm open to buying new where the price to performance ratio isn't so large.
As a rough idea this is along the lines of what I'm thinking system wise:
Case: Origen ae s16t- Basically I need a case with a built in display so it can sit on a shelf like a stereo and media can be accessed without firing up the projector. As mentioned I've managed to get it below half price but I'm open to other cases (would especially like something smaller) if they have a built in display. Alternatively anyone have any ideas for mounting small displays to other cases, have been tempted to try a 7" USB powered screen with a zotac magnus en1060 if I could find away to make it tidy.
CPU: A new intel G4600 or used i5 6500? Both can be got for close to the the same price. I know some emultors care more about clock speed than cores making the G4600 viable but will I miss the extra cores to handle background processes? Recommended coolers would like to try and keep the system quiet
GPU: A gtx 1060 would probably be ideal but a bit more than I'd like to spend ideally, wondering whether to go for the 1050ti or whether and second hand 970 or 980 would be more value for money. I am also interested in trying to keep sound and power usage down abit so any advice in optimising this would be great. Oh card length needs to be <245mm though i think I can stretch to 280mm if I don't use all the hard drive slots.
Storage: Probably an m2. drive for o/s and programs if the motherboard allows and add mechanical drives for media as needed, again recommendations for quiet drives would be great.
Motherboard: Not really got a clue guess it depends on the CPU and if there's change in the case used. Built in wifi would be nice though I'm hoping to have it connected directly to the router being as its streaming to the rest of the network. any useful things to look out for here?
Power supply: Shouldn't need to be huge but again I'm out of touch with power requirements these days, would like to be as quiet as possible, would fanless be an option or would a fan be useful to aid extraction of heat from other components.
In addition to this hardware wise any hints for keeping noise/power consumption down would be gratefully accepted along with things I might need to consider network wise.
Software wise Kodi seems to be the way to go for controlling directly from the HTPC but not sure how to set things up so other devices can access music and video from the device via the network?
Sorry for length but thanks for any help that can be given.
