HTPC

borich_planner

borich_planner

borich_planner

Associate
Joined
16 Feb 2009
Posts
1,505
I am looking to run XBMC with sickbeard etc. The HTPC will be need to run everthing through HDMI to my ONKYO 706 AMP. I already have a standalone Blu ray player, so no need for a blu ray drive.

Hardware wise I have a space 320 gig drive and ATX case. What hardware will I require to run XBMC with 40 gig Blu ray ISOs without any slowdown.

For storage I have a WDTV with 2TB USB Drive and a 1 TB Nas.

Budget is as cheap as possible and as quiet as possible.

In the future I will look to add a solid state drive and a decent HTPC Case such as the Antec Fusion Remote HTPC Case - Black

Was thinking of this for under £200

Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
MSI H61M-E33 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION**
Lepa N-Series 400W Power Supply
Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit

Comes in at 181.
 
Last edited:
i know its over budget, but the SATA 6GB/s will be very helpful for a SSD, and the USB3 will be useful for any devices that do 1080p video through USB (black magic intensity shuttle for example)
ive also put a PSU i would trust in there:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £85.99
1 x MSI H67MA-E35 Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge) **B3 REVISION** £59.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £39.98
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £23.98
Total : £209.94 (includes shipping : £10.00).
 
Yeah the i3-2100 does seem to be the cheapest option at the moment for HTPC's.
Dolby Digital, TrueHD (up to 7.1), DTS, DTS-HD MA (up to 7.1) can all be bitstreamed over HDMI. (as long as the mobo does HDMI 1.3a and above)

Good case choice in the Antec. silver one is way nicer though! :)

If you want to make it quieter down the line grab yourself a cheap Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6450
That way you can offload all the video aspect to a slient GPU and the fan on the CPU won't be going nuts all the time!
 
R088ieS86 said:
Yeah the i3-2100 does seem to be the cheapest option at the moment for HTPC's.
Dolby Digital, TrueHD (up to 7.1), DTS, DTS-HD MA (up to 7.1) can all be bitstreamed over HDMI. (as long as the mobo does HDMI 1.3a and above)

Good case choice in the Antec. silver one is way nicer though! :)

If you want to make it quieter down the line grab yourself a cheap Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6450
That way you can offload all the video aspect to a slient GPU and the fan on the CPU won't be going nuts all the time!
Click to expand...

I think the above mobo does HDMI 1.3a?
 
borich_planner said:
I think the above mobo does HDMI 1.3a?
Click to expand...

Your guess is as good as mine, the MSI website doesn't state what spec they used for the HDMI. If you ask in the customer service section they might be able to check the box to see if it says on there. But the manual doesn't help either :(
 
For £10 more you could go with a Llano set up which has vastly superior graphics and a true quad core processor. Also the AMD platform comes with SATA 6Gb, USB3 and a full speed Pcie x16 slot.

amd llano a6-3650 2.60ghz (socket fm1) apu processor (ad3650wngxbox) with free dirt3 pc game - £83.99
msi a75ma-g55 amd hudson d3 (socket fm1) ddr3 llano micro-atx motherboard - £71.99

there's even a free copy of dirt 3 that you can sell off to bring the price down

edit: Motherboard specs are here it does do HDMI 1.4
 
Last edited:
Clav said:
For £10 more you could go with a Llano set up which has vastly superior graphics and a true quad core processor. Also the AMD platform comes with SATA 6Gb, USB3 and a full speed Pcie x16 slot.

amd llano a6-3650 2.60ghz (socket fm1) apu processor (ad3650wngxbox) with free dirt3 pc game - £83.99
msi a75ma-g55 amd hudson d3 (socket fm1) ddr3 llano micro-atx motherboard - £71.99

there's even a free copy of dirt 3 that you can sell off to bring the price down

edit: Motherboard specs are here it does do HDMI 1.4
Click to expand...

Which memory would you recommend.

Finally what remote would you guys receommend for when running XBMC?
 
It will depend on which model you bought?
But most of them need an Ir receiver, you can get USB dongles for less than £10 these days.

You can get them built into media cases, but i think your using a standard tower?
 
Would the following spec work for a HTPC as I have been offered the following:

Thermalright SI-128 heat sink
Asus P5B-Deluxe
OCZ 4GB (4x 1GB) PC2-6400 DDR2 800 MHz Dual Channel
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache
Western Digital Caviar RE16 160GB WD1600YS
Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB WD1600JS
Lian Li PC60 Case.

All I would need to make it complete is the following:

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6450 HM 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply
CPU: e4500 cpu

So my question is would this be acceptable spec for running HTPC including playing 40 gig Blu Ray isos?
 
It could, but i would rip out the drives and replace them with a decent 1/2 TB seasgate or Samsung drive.
3 drives spinning up may get annoying and 160 * 3 = 480GB. Not much space when you started geting HD material
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom