HTPC for £300 possible?

True_Scotsman

True_Scotsman

True_Scotsman

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So basically a friend was asking me if its possible for an HTPC to be built for £300.

Just the box is needed, he has Win7, keyboard & Mouse and will be connected to his HDTV via HDMI.

So OcUK Spec me :D
 
Lian Li PC-8NB Midi Case - Black £81.70
(£68.08) £81.70
(£68.08)
Asus M4A88T-M AMD 880G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £43.99
(£36.66) £43.99
(£36.66)
Corsair Builder Series CX 430W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUK) £38.99
(£32.49) £38.99
(£32.49)
Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit £34.99
(£29.16) £34.99
(£29.16)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £27.98
(£23.32) £27.98
(£23.32)
Sub Total : £239.70
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £50.29
Total : £301.74
 
Or, slightly cheaper with a quad core - but nastier case :p

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 840 "95W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £77.99
(£64.99) £77.99
(£64.99)
Asus M4A88T-M AMD 880G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Corsair Builder Series CX 430W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUK) £38.99
(£32.49) £38.99
(£32.49)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM 1yr Warranty (ST31000528AS) £37.99
(£31.66) £37.99
(£31.66)
Asus TA-M11 Midi Gaming Case - Black/Silver £37.00
(£30.83) £37.00
(£30.83)
Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit £34.99
(£29.16) £34.99
(£29.16)
Sub Total : £239.12
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £49.92
Total : £299.54
 
Thing is, for JUST an HTPC you really don't need a quad core Athlon II. You could use a dual core Athlon II. Or, cheaper still is the tricore Athlon II. While the dual core is a native dual core, the tri is a quad with a core disabled. I think you can have the 3.2 GHz tri for £60 or there about. Unlock a core if you want BANG! instant Phenom II 840. Unlock the L3 cache and I'm not sure what it registers itself as. Phenom II something or other. B I think.
 
You are ofc correct - you can get away with Hudson boards for a HTPC (if you use the correct software, other brands need to get act together :rolleyes:), even a Sempron would cope perfectly fine.

Unlocking isn't guaranteed so I would never recommend getting a Athlon II X3 or Phenom II X2/3 in the hope of unlocking!

Unlock the L3 cache and it becomes a B3 :)
 
Yeah i was looking at the Hudson boards earlier (the Asus AMD E35M1-M PRO), what do you mean by the correct software?

Thanks for the info so far, very helpfull.
 
I would risk it for a biscuit with the tricore. Sure, it might not unlock to a quad, but it's still three cores instead of two. And cheaper than the X4's. So you can put a bit of money towards the Lian Li you specc'd in the first run.

And while unlocking isn't guaranteed, people are still paranoid that dual or tri chips with disabled cores are chips that have faults. Sure, while a good portion of them might be binned chips it's much more likely that the reason they've had a core disabled is because it's cheaper to disable a core (or cache) than start a whole new manufacturing process for a specific chip.

Which makes me wonder. Why was the Athlon II dual core a native dual core design, as opposed to a quad core design with two cores disabled like Phenom II dual cores

¯\(°_o)/¯
 
Basically, as of yet there is only one type of software that will run videos with the Hudson board. e.g. Windows Media Player/Centre and most other softwares are not (yet!) capable of playback with the boards.

When I get back, I'll open up an old CustomPC magazine (might even be current one actually) and tell you which software does run it.
 
Brian8bit said:
I would risk it for a biscuit with the tricore. Sure, it might not unlock to a quad, but it's still three cores instead of two. And cheaper than the X4's. So you can put a bit of money towards the Lian Li you specc'd in the first run.

And while unlocking isn't guaranteed, people are still paranoid that dual or tri chips with disabled cores are chips that have faults. Sure, while a good portion of them might be binned chips it's much more likely that the reason they've had a core disabled is because it's cheaper to disable a core (or cache) than start a whole new manufacturing process for a specific chip.

Which makes me wonder. Why was the Athlon II dual core a native dual core design, as opposed to a quad core design with two cores disabled like Phenom II dual cores

¯\(°_o)/¯
Click to expand...

No doubt its a perfecly valid point - and makes sense in this case.

I've pondered that as well - perhaps the Athlon II X2s are aimed more at business or school spec PCs?
 
I didn't see anyone mention tv cards.
If you are planning to view and record tv on the HTPC, you'll need one or more TV tuner cards. You can get dual tuners for around £50 if you look around, or a lot more if you want quality.
 
This is quite out of the box from everyone elses suggestions. However, It's worth a mention.

I picked myself up an Acer revo 3700 a fortnight ago, I wasn't expecting much from it... but I was pleasantly surprised. It's perfect for an HTPC, for which I use it for. It's incredibly small, so it fits nicely under the telly. It's totally silent, which is a big factor with HTPC, for me anyway.

It's running windows 7 with XBMC installed and plays 1080p video flawlessly. It connects via HDMI, has built in wifi, gigabit ethernet, WOL available.

I think for £200 you can't go wrong, it saves all the hassle of piecing parts together, working out what's what. This little thing does it all out of the box for 200 quid.

Not to everyone's tastes, but it certainly does me. I connected an external HDD to it for the storage, but I also tried streaming some HD content via the Gigabit ethernet and it played fine without a hitch.
 
Integrated ATI Radeon HD 4250 (DX10.1) graphics on motherboard,
HDMI / DVI / VGA output
Blu Ray Rom / DVD writer combo
DVB terrestrial card.
1.0Tb HDD Low energy
2Gb DDR3
Athlon II dual core 3.0GHz
Low profile case. (This is the only part I am not sure about but HTPC cases are available elsewhere)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
LG CH10LS20 10x BluRay-ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail) £57.98
(£48.32) £57.98
(£48.32)
Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA-II 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EARS) £48.98
(£40.82) £48.98
(£40.82)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £43.99
(£36.66) £43.99
(£36.66)
OcUK Aphrodite Media Case - Black £39.82
(£33.18) £39.82
(£33.18)
Compro VideoMate DVB-T220 Digital TV Internal PCI - Retail £30.62
(£25.52) £30.62
(£25.52)
OCZ Gold 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Single Channel Module (OCZ3G1333LV2G) £19.99
(£16.66) £19.99
(£16.66)
Sub Total : £259.48
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £53.90
Total : £323.38
 
Last edited:
Just done it myself for just over £200 mate.

Antec ISK 300 (with 65w PSU) ~£56
2GB DDR2 RAM ~£20
Zotac IONITX-G-E Intel Atom 330 Nvidia ION ~£92
320GB Internal 2.5 inch HDD ~£30

Comes to ~£198. You could probably pick up the RAM cheaply second hand too.The case will also support a half height TV card too.

Hope that helps!
 
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