HTPC Spec Check

telemachus

telemachus

telemachus

Associate
Joined
4 Dec 2005
Posts
13
I've put together more standard desktops than I care to remember but i've never built an HTPC setup so i'd love any recommendations or advice on my ideas sofar. I'm starting from scratch having had a mini tower (that recently exploded itself) which was fairly noisy so i'd like to try and make this one as quiet as possible. It won't be playing any games, just used for HD/assorted video and audio.

Sofar i'm looking at:

Case - Antec Fusion

Mboard - Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H amd 780g chipset

Cpu - AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200

Tuner card - Compro VideoMate Vista T500F DVB-T Hybrid Internal PCI TV Tuner (will be using Media Centre and need support for current analogue tv)

Ram - OCZ 4GB Vista Gold Series DDR2

Dvd - Sony NEC Optiarc (i'm going to wait a while to upgrade to a blu-ray player until things settle)

Drive - Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB

Cooler - Scythe Mini Cooler (will this work passively with my case/cpu as i've heard, it'd be great but i'm a little nervous of melting a brand new cpu/board ! )

The only thing i'm not sure of yet is a psu , given the size of the thing i'd like a modular one for airflow and neatness, and also with a passive heatsink it would be nice to have it as quiet as possible.
 
All looks OK, not to OTT

Cooler will be OK, PSU doesn't need to be to big, summat around 450W will do with plenty to spare.
 
Cheers for that, it seems i'm fairly settled then, i've tagged a Keysonic wireless keyboard on and the "OCZ ModXStream Pro 400w Silent" as the psu and I seem to be set!

Any last suggestions or blatant omissions i've made before I finalise the order?
 
I'm still not totally decided on that one, I don't know whether to go for XP Media Centre or Vista Home Premium, and if Vista whether to go 64 or 32 bit, just as with HTPC hardware i'm completely clueless when it comes to the media centre software as well :p . I've also gone for the Antec NeoHE 430W psu over the OCZ , for a similar price it seems to get very good reviews over the noise it makes.
 
Bare in mind there is 2 versions of the Antec HTPC case. One without power supply and a remote and one with power supply and no remote. If I was you get the one with a power supply and no remote then buy a mce Microsoft remote.

I have just bought a similar setup with Antec Fusion Case and Vista 64bit with mce remote and compro dvb-t tuner works a treat.
 
Last edited:
Cheers for that, I finally think i'm all sorted, after a few flip flops backwards and forwards :p .

Just one thing i'm not sure about is the tv card which i'm utterly clueless about. Do I need a dual input card to both watch tv through MC and record a different channel at the same time? If that's true and I bought say the Compro 750f can I set both inputs to terrestrial and record/view at the same time or the pair both fixed individually to terrestrial and digital?

The reason I need a hybrid model is we're stuck on terrestrial for a year or two, so i'd like to be able to record/view seperate channels on terrestrial now, and then set the card to dual input digital after we move to digital.
 
fobose said:
Vista Home Premium x64 :)
Click to expand...
Personally I wouldn't recommend that for a htpc just yet if the op intends to use media center.
The media center in x64 is 64bit it requires 64bit codecs and the range of codecs could be slightly better (no real player, quicktime etc support in x64 wmp11/media center when there is in 32bit). MKV support isn't as good either. Because of this I would say get 32bit for the time being.
 
Might as well ask in this thread and might help the OP -
I'm going with the AMD Athlon X2 4850e as it's meant to be the efficient one for things like a HTPC?
 
Actually yeah, I saw reference to that on a few other threads, i'm trying to build it using the scythe mini ninja heatsink running passively so I might go for one of them, the trouble is Overclockers don't seem to stock them so it would mean splitting my order (everytime I think i'm nearly there.....:p )
 
Is the one your after: Clicky

Running one in my media center cooling a E2220.

I'm running Vista x64 with Cyberlink Power DVD.
 
Yeah that's the cooler i'm looking at, I thought using the AMD 4850e someone mentioned might be an idea if I run it passively, as far as I can see it runs at a slightly lower voltage and stays below 45watts maximum.

Still a bit stuck on tv cards, i'd like dual tuners, but i'm not sure if i can use the dual/hybrid card for dual terrestrial/terrestrial, and later switch it to dual digital/digital, or is it fixed to one digital input, and one terrestrial .
 
Tv cards are becoming something of strange and terrifying new world for me :p .

It seems being able to simultaneously watch/record analogue is almost non existant on a single card (unless i'm being dense, which is entirely possible). Would it be easier just to get a dual digital/analogue card and stick in a cheap second analogue only card to assign to recording only? How easy is it to set Vista MC to recognise this, or will it go beserk with two cards?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom