HTPC/Storage - Low budget ~£250

Richeh

Richeh

Richeh

Soldato
Joined
24 Jul 2003
Posts
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Location
South East Coast
I'm wanting to build an HTPC/Storage computer and could do with some advice.

I have been using a laptop for the last 4 years so am out of touch with what would fit my requirements. The PC will be hooked up to my receiver via hdmi and will be required to play full HD BD rips without issue.

Budget is basically as low as possible but I don't want to find it starts stuttering etc and it may be used for a bit of desktop use but will be on 24/7 regardless. As I also need it for storage the case is the biggest issue for me, I need at LEAST 4 3.25" bays but don't want it to be massive.

Doing some rough browsing am I right in thinking an mATX AMD motherboard plus CPU (Something like an A6 just to ensure there's enough power?) and a mATX case which should provide enough bays.

Any help appreciated. Ideally as cheap as possible but don't want to go to cheap to compromise and have stuttering, was hoping £250ish would get me most of the way there. As it will be running XBMC would a small SSD be the best as it will need to come on and up quickly as possible, I have a couple of external desktop HDD's (3TB worth) that I will take out of their cases and chuck in. Would also like to use my harmony remote along with it so assume an IR receiver is required.

Any help appreciated.
 
 
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Is it worth going for a seperate CPU just for a bit extra oomph?

I do like the look of that Lian-Li case, although the extra £50 makes it harder to justify aside from aesthetics.
 
I was referring to getting a motherboard + CPU, as the review provided for that motherboard states the CPU is quite weak although the GPU does most of the work in things where it's not the CPU struggles.

Although it will be mainly normal desktop use, I may do the odd bit of encoding etc and was just curious as to whether getting a seperate CPU say an A6? Would provide a 'safety net' incase any CPU intensive tasks came up.
 
This CPU :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-310-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967&subcat=2060

With this motherboard :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-377-GI&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2058

Is a fair chunk more powerful, for an extra £12 or so.

Its micro ATX rather than Mini - Itx & probably slightly higher (but still low) power consumption.

And a nice micro atx case :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-017-FD&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1556
 
Which is better out of the 2 processors mentioned, one has a slightly higher clock but the other has more cache. What produces more real world performance for general use?

Am liking the cases although they are getting more and more expensive!

Is there any bonus to having 6GB on Windows 7 64 Bit? Am willing to stretch the budget but would prefer to keep it around £300.

Cheers for all the help so far!
 
Fwiw My htpc will start XBMC within two seconds, or less. I have a plextor ssd fitted.
I have just put together a htpc for my daughter and that start XBMC in two seconds. She has an old 320gb mechanical drive fitted.
As both of them use S3 sleep and are suspended from within XBMC it seems to make no difference to how responsive they are. I must admit to being a little surprised at that and, in some ways, a little disappointed.
Both of the htpc's access their media on mechanical drives. I have 5x 2tb drives fitted. My daughter has a 500gb drive. I will buy another hd for her when prices reduce.

Tldr version - I have found no difference at all when using a ssd drive on a htpc against that of a mechanical one, especially when s3 sleep is used.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Llano A6-3670K 2.70GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor (AD3670WNGXBOX) £89.99
1 x OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G) £64.99
1 x MSI A75MA-P35 AMD A75 (Socket FM1) DDR3 Motherboard £42.00
1 x Fractal Design Core 1000 Midi Tower Case - Black £32.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £31.99
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B3ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £20.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1333C9D3B1K2/4G) £19.99
Total : £317.94 (includes shipping : £12.50).




This is good because I have the same, apart from the PSU Case & SSD
You can play some games on this too.
Not at high res, but I manage to play skyrim oblivion minecraft terraria super street fighter etc.
You will need to turn the res down though.


EDIT: This proccessor is very good, better than both others and has better graphics.
 
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I notice on that motherboard and the one previously mentioned there is no HDMI out?

I think I am missing something though as it seems the processors also have a GPU built in as well as the motherboard? Which one should I be using aiming for?

Luckily don't need a DVD drive so still coming in at just under £300.
 
Sorry for the late reply, sorry it doesent have hdmi... but you can find a different one and then you will be happy!
 
Richeh said:
...I think I am missing something though as it seems the processors also have a GPU built in as well as the motherboard? Which one should I be using aiming for?...
Click to expand...

Both AMD Llano (A4/A6/A8 etc )and Zacate (E-350/E450) have a embedded discrete GPU on the CPU (called accelerated processing units, APUs). The level of power will vary for example the weakest combination is the Zacate (E-350) it has a basic very low power dual core processor and a Radeon HD 6310. I use this in my HTPC, specifially the Asus E-350M1-I Deluxe, which is passively cooled. I run Windows 7 (with 4GB RAM) and XBMC as the front end. With an SSD it boots into XBMC from cold in around 10 seconds and plays everything I throw at it, large 1080p MKV's play flawlessly and output is via HDMI to an AVR so I get lossless HD Audio as well. Navigating XBMC and Windows is snappy and I don't get any delays or stuttering but if there are a number of programmes running, for example downloading in background, malwarebytes/anti-virus scans running, web browsing it can become slow! I only ever tend to use XBMC on it's own, so no background programmes running and it's perfectly fine. Over night I set my downloads to run so it never overlaps either. 1080p youtube videos also play fine.

For a bit more oomph as you put it I would look at getting the A6 tri core (non-K version) with an A75 chipset Llano board which has HDMI. Power consumption and heat will be more than the Zacate setup but it will be perfectly fine for watching movies with other background applications/programme running too, possibly a bit of light gaming too.

How about this. Personally I love the look of the Lian Li case and it seems ideal for a home server (although it's not your typical HTPC case). Eventually when I need more space I'll be migrating my HTPC components in all likely hood to one too. As your system is likely to be on 24/7 I don't see the point of getting an SSD, so would probably give that a miss. Yes you may lose the snappiness in navigating Windows and opening programmes though.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Lian Li PC-Q08B USB3.0 Mini-ITX Case - Black £79.99
1 x Gigabyte A75N-USB3 AMD A75 (Socket FM1) DDR3 mini ITX Motherboard £74.99
1 x AMD Llano A6-3500 2.40GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor £56.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £31.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £19.99
Total : £263.95 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
Useful information, just built a freenas box out of an old 745 optiplex. With a view to end up getting something like that Fractal Design Array. But i'm liking the look of the Lian Li Mini-ITX case. Would likely want to use it as a server too, so edging on more ram but that cpu looks like more than enough.

I was having problems finding a motherboard which supported enough sata, so this thread is coming in useful!
 
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Thanks very much Shadow Boxer, that spec is kind of what I was after, although you think an SSD would be a waste due to it being on most of the time? The reason it would be on 24/7 is due to uTorrent running in the background. Can the machine be put in to any kind of sleep mode where uTorrent can still seed/download in the background or does the machine have to be fully up and running for that.

If it can be put into sleep but still have uTorrent then I would do that which would make an SSD more beneficial if i'm correct?

Also as RAM is so cheap I was thinking of going for a 6GB/8GB set mainly just because I can but money isn't THAT tight that I would have a problem with the extra £10-15.

Cheers for all the help so far.

Out of 'curiosity' (because one of my damn friends suggested it!) what is the min I would need to spend to get a PC to play Battlefield 3 at 1080p all purdy on the TV? Only reason I ask is BF3 is the one game I play on my 360 and would love to be able to run it from my PC but fairly sure it will near enough double the price?
 
I believe the system has to be on with uTorrent, not too clued on about torrenting/downloading so perhaps somebody else could suggest something. Not sure whether or not something like a HP Microserver with a Radeon HD6450/8GB RAM upgrade would be suitable. Would act perfectly as a low power server, can house upto 5 3.5" HDDs with a caddy and will play video too fine too. See this thread. HP are still doing cashback so would be around £140 for the server, £40-50 for the GPU and RAM.

As for a gaming build, yeah I think you'll be looking at roughly doubling the price for a basic gaming system. Would be looking along the line of an i3-2100, basic Z68/77 motherboard, 8GB RAM, 7850.

If you have a SATA HDD and optical drive you can reuse then how about this.

YOUR BASKET
1 x VTX3D HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Dirt3 PC Game £179.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £91.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £35.99
1 x BitFenix Outlaw Gaming Case - Black £32.99
Total : £474.92 (includes shipping : FREE).



Nice upgrade path with a Sandy Bridge i5-2500K/i7-2600K or Ivy Bridge CPU. It's actully not that much more!;)

Have a look at this thread for info about the 7850, seems like they overclock brilliantly and will bascially match a stock 7950/GTX580, serious bang for buck for a £180 card.
 
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Thanks again!

That is a lot more reasonable than I thought, I thought the GFX would be the problem due to BF3 being so demanding but reading up that card seems very good ALTHOUGH the base unit will be in fairly confined spaces and don't want it too loud so am thinking the OC part is out of the question?

As the new Intel CPU's are being released end of the month am hoping the i5's may drop to sub £150 in which case they are quite a large step up over the i3's I believe?

Is very hard choosing whether to stick to my HTPC/Storage or give myself the option by going this route. Problem being the HTPC etc CPU, Mobo and GFX are all built in (in most cases) so upgrading if I decided to play a game or 2 is limited.

Still primarily need the system for storage as have 3TB of external hard drives filled up. 2TB's are around £100 now (as opposed to the £60ish I paid for my WD 2TB a year ago). Are these prices going to stay the same now? I heard HDD's were just very cheap before the floods so is unlikely they will go back down that far.

Again all the help much appreciated. Haven't had a PC for 4 years so want to make sure I get it right and don't find myself wanting!
 
Thinking of buying the RAM that is in this week only as £30 for 8gb seems very cheap. shouldnt be any compatibility problems should there for htpc or i5 setup? Just wanna make sure before i order!
 
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