ITX HTPC for £250-300 Can it be done?

Deadude

Deadude

Deadude

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Hi all

I'm currently after a nice ITX PC for our lounge so i can get some HD stuff playing down there (mainly from mkv files etc) i plan to use mediaportal on it as im currently using it on my own PC and find it rather good.

I just have no idea of what ITX stuff is decent, it needs to be able to play HD files only needs to take 1 hard drive and a DVD drive would be fine. Ideally it needs to be as small as possibly as i just want to hide it behind the TV and just use something like the PS3 remote to control it.

so any ideas?
 
few reasons i didnt want a media streamer were firstly i've not seen any after looking at a few that catalog things as nicely as media portal does with all my tv series/ films also theres always the odd thing they dont seem to be able to play and i would also like the unit to double as a DVD player seeing the current one has just died.
 
Zotac ION dual core Atom board - £130~
Noah Mini ITX case - £45~
DDR2 RAM - ...?
HDD - ...?

The Noah case will take a slim optical drive and a 3.5"/2.5" HDD and comes with an 80W PSU which should be suitable for the spec you're looking at.

I did a single core build here (sorry, pimping it again), which handled standard def stuff. The Ion chipset handles HD stuff fine though.
 
Dah, it's gone up from the place I saw it at that price. You're right that's the sort of price it is now. Shame, but it's still a great case especially with a PSU. :)
 
VIA ARTiGO A1100 Barebone Pico-ITX Kit is about £200 or so.
slap in a disk and ram and you're done.
 
VeNT said:
VIA ARTiGO A1100 Barebone Pico-ITX Kit is about £200 or so.
slap in a disk and ram and you're done.
Click to expand...
this?

My initial (negative) thoughts:
-It's really ugly
-It can only contain a single 2.5inch HDD and only has 1 SATA port
-It can't hold an optical drive
-No PCI/PCI-E
-Looks like it requires DDR2 SODIMMs (so no re-using old desktop memory)?
-I assume no Linux drivers since it was only released very recently (though admittedly these may come). Edit: I've check it doesn't look like video aceleration is supported on Linux, so no XBMC.
-It's unclear how the video acceleration works. It says it has been tested on Windows 7, but what does that mean? Does it support DXVA? And how well? Would you be stuck using a particular (and inevitably rubbish) video player?
-No reviews.

I guess the positives:
-Very small
-Very low power (I would guess lower power than Atom since it ships with a 65W PSU, but with no reviews it's hard to tell).

It's a nice bit of kit, but it's very limiting for an HTPC. And since you can get the Zotec N330 ION board with built-in Wifi + a decent case + PSU for the same price I'm not sure why you'd choose it unless you absolutely had to have something smaller/lower power than ITX. An ASRock system with optical drive and no RAM/HDD is also the same price and pre-built HD streamers are cheaper.

It'll be interesting to see a review though.
 
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Do the Ions actually handle HD ok ive read so many contradicting things about them. most of the stuff would be 720p but i do have a few 1080p files as well
 
Deadude said:
Do the Ions actually handle HD ok ive read so many contradicting things about them. most of the stuff would be 720p but i do have a few 1080p files as well
Click to expand...

Most of your pirate stuff will play via DXVA, if anything doesn't work (only very old encodes or those done with daft settings) you can use CoreAVC and CUDA.
 
Baboonanza said:
this?

My initial (negative) thoughts:
-It's really ugly
-It can only contain a single 2.5inch HDD and only has 1 SATA port
-It can't hold an optical drive
-No PCI/PCI-E
-Looks like it requires DDR2 SODIMMs (so no re-using old desktop memory)?
-I assume no Linux drivers since it was only released very recently (though admittedly these may come). Edit: I've check it doesn't look like video aceleration is supported on Linux, so no XBMC.
-It's unclear how the video acceleration works. It says it has been tested on Windows 7, but what does that mean? Does it support DXVA? And how well? Would you be stuck using a particular (and inevitably rubbish) video player?
-No reviews.
Click to expand...

tbh VIA have a good linux following, I'd assume that anything on there that works under windows will work under linux.
If you just need it for HTPC then I'd have thought you'ed be ok without a PCI/-E slot?
could go external CD/DVD but I get the point with that.
also, it's ugly but is gonna be behind your screen. when will you see it?
 
Th info I found on the XBMC forum was that the binary Linux driver only does 2D acceleration (I assume that includes video, but not certain), and the open source driver doesn't do 3D or 2D acceleration. ASFAIK that rules out XBMC because it used GL for it's GUI and would clearly need video acceleration. That stuff may come in the future, but until I see some proof it'll work I'd err on the side of caution.

Point taken about the PCI-E, but still: Storage/optical is too limiting for an all-in-one HTPC, as a streaming device it's more expeensive than other off-the-shelf offerings (though admittedly they are even less flexible) and it's both too limited and too expensive for a custom NAS. I'm just not sure what niche it could fill in the home market?
 
I recently built the following mini itx system for just over £300.

Silverstone SG05 inc. psu = £60 ish
Zotac GF9300 mobo = £100 ish
Intel E5200 = £35
2gb DDR2 ram = £30
800gb WD Green = £55
Slimline DVD RW =£35

Plays hd stuff no probs, of course it helps with the price if your on members market.
 
OK you can do this easily for under £300

Samsung SN-S083C/BEBE 8x DVD±RW SATA Slimline Drive £28.99 inc vat From OcUK
CD-124-SA_200.jpg

Samsung SpinPoint M7 160GB 5400RPM SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £32.99 inc vat From OcUK
HD-093-SA_200.jpg

Antec ISK310-150 Mini ITX Case, 150w PSU £60.84 inc vat GOOGLE search
ISK310-150.jpg

2GB, 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-6400 memory module (CT25664AA800) £44.64 inc vat
240-pinDIMM.gif

Zotac IONITX F-E Ion N330 Motherboard £110.87 inc vat and delivery
GOOGLE search
51sw5Z3ItDL._SL500_AA300_.jpg


Total £278.33 inc vat

That includes the option for DVD playback and a nice (imho) looking case. It gives you potential expansion via x16 pci-e slot (for a freeview / freesat card), a second HD if you need it. The case is nice enough that you dont need to hide it away and be ashamed of it and it should be nice and quiet. The only thing you will need is some form of remote.

Mushii
 
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Right thanks for all the help guys i have spec'd a system up from all the suggestions. Just a few more things with the Antec case will a standard CPU cooler fit in there ok? Also will the CPU i've picked handle HD playback ok?

OK so the stuff i picked was

Intel Celeron 430 1.80GHz Socket 775 FSB800 £32.86
Antec ISK 310 - 150 Mini ITX Case - With 150W PSU £66.30
ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi Socket 775 DDR2 £104.45
2GB DDR2 667MHz Value Memory Non ECC Unbuffered £36.99
Western Digital WD1600BEVT 160GB 2.5" Hard Drive £32.71
LG GT20N 8x Slim Notebook DVD±RW £22.99


Total is somewhere around £300 can anyone see anywhere i can improve with no added costs :D?
 
Cant get on the members market yet :( I Do think i probably should go for a better CPU tbh i might browse some auction sites i know the E2200 can handle HD fine and they sold for around 30-40 new so maybe i can get a second hand bargain.

Also does anyone know if that case will fit a normal intel cooler?
 
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