HTPC - Building it from a E4600 upwards

ChrisGTL

ChrisGTL

ChrisGTL

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22 Jul 2010
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548
Location
Huddersfield, W. Yorskhire
Guys,

I want to get this right so hopefully someone can advise me.

I'm building a HTPC which will hold music and films and connect to my AV via HDMI for films and via Coaxial for music.

It will connect to the router via CAT5 so don't need wireless.

I just made my first purchase on here which is my starting point, a core duo E4600 which by my reckoning will be plenty for what I want.

So, now I need a;

775 motherboard
4 GB RAM
PSU
GFX /w HDMI
Asus Xonar HDAV PCI 1.3 Slim
Media Centre Case
1TB HDD

I don't want a full height media centre case as it will leave my AV kit with minimal clearance for heat issues.

So I'm looking at cases that require the low profile cards with the low profile end-plates. The Xonar has this so that is fine.

Not sure what size PSU these smaller media cases take?

I think my next purchase needs to be a case and then I can figure out if I need a small motherboard and PSU etc.

What GFX do I need to comply with all the latest HD formats? Would a MSI 5450 low profile do the job nicely? Obviously I want the HTPC to be close to silent.

Any pointers please?
 
Just a query about the Xonar. Why do you want a sound card when the graphics card will handle all your audio needs?

To answer at least one of your questions though a 5450 will do the job perfectly. I run a 6450 in my HP Microserver and it handles everything you throw at it without skipping a beat. Considering everything is offloaded to the GPU (both video and audio) you really don't need much in the way of CPU power.
 
Cheers for the reply.

Reason I want the Xonar is purely for the coaxial output to my AV equipment. This may seem really small for the price of buying a Xonar but when I switch from TV/Laptop/Blu-ray my setup decides the HDMI is not available in foobar meaning I have to go into foobar settings and tell it to use HDMI again.

Its a problem I have been facing for a while now - and nothing I have tried has worked. Like I say its not a mega problemo but if I could configure foobar to use purely a different source than HDMI it wouldn't cause any problems.
 
Why a card with coaxial though? That's a very expensive card for just a coaxial connection. Can't you use optical from motherboard or a cheaper Xonar?
 
Call me OTT. I've spent 3k on an audio system and I want to make sure the source is top quality.

I prefer coaxial over optical. And I can actually make use of a £60 coaxial cable I bought when I bought my Yammy AV.

-----
Edit** On a completely different note I can't decide if to go Nvidia or ATI. Which provides the best drivers for HDMI applications?
 
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In all honesty I'd search for a 775 board with a coax out.

After months of trying a variety of soundcards (XFi's and Xonar's) found there's no difference (IMO) between those and a half decent motherboard sending out the data - it's all the same information.

You'd have extra cash available for other stuff if you could manage without a fancy sound card.

gt

EDIT: Oh, and as for drivers I've always found Nvidia to just tip it. Seem a little more stable to me. That said I'm currently using an AMD Llano system for my HTPC (which obviously uses an ATi GPU) and it seems to do ok. You'd probably be fine with either - they've largely sorted themselves out now on the HDMI front! :D
 
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gt_junkie said:
In all honesty I'd search for a 775 board with a coax out.

After months of trying a variety of soundcards (XFi's and Xonar's) found there's no difference (IMO) between those and a half decent motherboard sending out the data - it's all the same information.

You'd have extra cash available for other stuff if you could manage without a fancy sound card.

gt

EDIT: Oh, and as for drivers I've always found Nvidia to just tip it. Seem a little more stable to me. That said I'm currently using an AMD Llano system for my HTPC (which obviously uses an ATi GPU) and it seems to do ok. You'd probably be fine with either - they've largely sorted themselves out now on the HDMI front! :D
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!! You make a lot of sense. My motherboard has to be a 775 mATX and I'm pretty limited to what I can get.

Bought my HTPC case last night - Lian Li PC-C37B
 
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ChrisGTL said:
Call me OTT. I've spent 3k on an audio system and I want to make sure the source is top quality.

I prefer coaxial over optical. And I can actually make use of a £60 coaxial cable I bought when I bought my Yammy AV.

-----
Edit** On a completely different note I can't decide if to go Nvidia or ATI. Which provides the best drivers for HDMI applications?
Click to expand...

you spend £3k and its not all hdmi? :confused:
 
realBabelfish said:
why lose out on HD sound for the sake of flicking a button? you know coax cant do better than 5.1 DD / DTS? you are losing out, especially if you have a £3k system which should be able to handle 9.1 HD audio...
Click to expand...

My HDMI does 5.1/7.1.

Coaxial would only do 2.0

As for flicking a button - I'm lazy!! No, seriously it annoys me to the point of willing to spend some money so it doesn't do it anymore.
 
The point being a presume is that if you're so bothered about spending extra to get "the best sound quality" but are then using a connection which won't give you that sounds a bit counter productive surely?
 
Marvt74 said:
The point being a presume is that if you're so bothered about spending extra to get "the best sound quality" but are then using a connection which won't give you that sounds a bit counter productive surely?
Click to expand...

Digital coaxial doesn't provide the same quality signal as HDMI? :confused:
 
ChrisGTL said:
Call me OTT. I've spent 3k on an audio system and I want to make sure the source is top quality.
Click to expand...

You don't want anything that's clocked internally by the PC if you have £3k worth of audio gear to play with, you want an outboard USB to SPDIF (Optical) convertor. Especially if you're thinking of blowing cash on a Xonar just for digital out - complete waste of time. Get an M2Tech Hiface or a Musical Fidelity V-link and feed it into your DAC / reciever (if you've got £3k worth of gear I assume you have a DAC, if not think about getting one for music!).

That's the music side covered, as others here have said you want HDMI for lossless DTSHD et al. in films - which can't be done by coax/optical.

[edit] - You'd also use the HDMI as your default windows output (that's films sorted) and run WASAPI/KS out from foobar to your your USB/SPDIF box - no switching, no conflicts, sorted.
 
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Ste said:
You don't want anything that's clocked internally by the PC if you have £3k worth of audio gear to play with, you want an outboard USB to SPDIF (Optical) convertor. Especially if you're thinking of blowing cash on a Xonar just for digital out - complete waste of time. Get an M2Tech Hiface or a Musical Fidelity V-link and feed it into your DAC / reciever (if you've got £3k worth of gear I assume you have a DAC, if not think about getting one for music!).

That's the music side covered, as others here have said you want HDMI for lossless DTSHD et al. in films - which can't be done by coax/optical.

[edit] - You'd also use the HDMI as your default windows output (that's films sorted) and run WASAPI/KS out from foobar to your your USB/SPDIF box - no switching, no conflicts, sorted.
Click to expand...

Cheers for the input Ste!!

Sounds like you have done some experimenting yourself, I was going to buy the VDAC or CA dacmagic plus but was told the DAC on my yammy 1010 was good enough. There is another USB to SPDIF I looked at too.....can't remember its name now..

Found it > http://centrance.com/products/dacport/ not cheap though.
 
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