HTPC help needed

[Golden Ape]

My old media PC has finally had it and I need to upgrade. I'll be cannibalising the old machine and keeping the case (Antec Fusion), power supply and some of the drives.

But my big question is what processor/ micro ATX motherboard do I go for? I'm pretty out of date but I see that the combined CPU graphics thingies seem quite good these days - I'm aiming for very low power consumption and quietness (I want to leave it on all the time). It will be mainly used for (in descending order of frequency): watching live tv via tuners, recording tv, playing DVDs & bluray, streaming iPlayer, playing downloaded films in iTunes, serving up music.

So what do I do - budget a few hundred ideally (just need the processor, motherboard, probably new fan, might buy a SSD for the OS).

On a related note I've always used windows (currently 7) and its media centre which I'm not that blown away with. Was thinking of swapping to XBMC - is it any good? Should I go the whole hog and put XMBC on linux - which would rule out iTunes I guess?

 

[Golden Ape]

Ah interesting - that was exactly the chip I was looking at (mainly for the low power consumption and good graphics). If you don't mind me asking what motherboard do you have it on and which fanless heatsink (is it in a large case?). Is the HD4000 good enough to deal with bluray and other full HD sources?

 

[Golden Ape]

Great thanks - I think I'm going to stick with my current case, there's not a lot wrong with it other than being a bit bigger than I'd like. Might look into silent heat sinks though...

 

[Golden Ape]

Ah good stuff thanks very much. These integrated GPUs are pretty impressive, I think the noisiest part of my old HTPC was the GPU fan which was needed for MPEG4 play back. Should be quite a bit cooler and quieter without that lot.

Hmm had forgotten about RAM though - I'll go for some cheap stuff. Will XBMC get by with 4gb? Actually something else - is there any reason to swap to linux, does XBMC 'like' it better?

 

[Golden Ape]

Yeh I would be pretty much only using it for XBMC - other things that I use the current one for are: 1) General file store (so fine under Linux) 2) Squeeze box server (again fine under Linux but I'm thinking of dumping the squeeze box anyway). But 3) I do use it to down load/rent films via iTunes and was thinking of using this to manage and play music via iOS remote control - I'm guessing this would be a lot harder under Linux?

I think the sole reason I'd be putting Linux on would be a) potentially more stable (had a surprising number of problems with Win7) b) more configurable (but I don't really have time to play with this) c) because I want to have a fiddle with Linux again.

 

[Golden Ape]

I should probably stick with windows - if I had more time then playing with linux could be *fun* but it's more important to get something working quickly. What air mouse do you use by the way?

I'm also wondering about shaving some cash of this thing by dumping the i3 3225 for a Pentium - I quite like the idea of the higher power graphics and lower termal out put but I'll probably be paying an extra £100 for the processor and higher spec motherboard. Would the pentium graphics be up to the job?

 

[Golden Ape]

Super thanks for all the good advice - have to get one of those air mice, looks nice. I did wonder about going down the PI route but since I've got lots of media centre bits I just thought it easier to stick with the current setup - plus running iTunes etc etc would make it all a bit tricker. I guess I probably should go for the slightly better processor - saving £50 now and finding I can't play HD would be a waste (though it does look like XBMC is fine on a Pentium with HD graphics - just)

 

[Golden Ape]

Actually I do have another question. I notice that XBMC recommends running on Win7 (if your'e going for windows that is). Is there some reason not to use Win8?

 

[Golden Ape]

Great, might give Win8 a try then. Cheers all, I'll let you know how it works out once I've put the beast together.