ITX HTPC for £250-300 Can it be done?

VeNT said:
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?
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i wouldn't be so sure about that. The via unichrome linux drivers suck.

althou thier motherboards generally work fine under linux, the onboard graphics they use dont.

The drives dont allow hardware acceleration, and under linux, u really cant use them to play HD playback because of this.

most ppl prefer to use the openchrome, the community made version that comes with most of the latest distros, but it still lacks properly hardware acceleration, so althou you can get X to run, they cant do video playback very well.

And this is on hardware thats been out for years, let alone thier new releases


For linux, you really need to go nvidia
 
Deadude said:
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?
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I would strongly suggest going for an Atom 330 ION instead. They really are designed for HTPC's

The only problem is that they are DDR3, so the memory is slightly more expensive
and give plenty of perforance for HD playback.

They also use less power, and are silent, passivly cooled, if those are important too you, and maybe in the future u could replace the hdd with a ssd, making it a totally silent system

also, the current ones work out cheaper that ur mobo/cpu combo.

at £110, u get pretty much the whole system, and no need to worry about cpu cooler either
 
Cycrow said:
I would strongly suggest going for an Atom 330 ION instead. They really are designed for HTPC's

The only problem is that they are DDR3, so the memory is slightly more expensive
and give plenty of perforance for HD playback.

They also use less power, and are silent, passivly cooled, if those are important too you, and maybe in the future u could replace the hdd with a ssd, making it a totally silent system

also, the current ones work out cheaper that ur mobo/cpu combo.

at £110, u get pretty much the whole system, and no need to worry about cpu cooler either
Click to expand...

Actually the Zotac Ion boards are DDR2 not DDR3, other than that I totally agree

Mushii
 
Mine does now Adam, but only because my case has an 80mm fan blowing down over the heatsink. I just removed the header cable rather than the whole fan in case I remove it or sell it on. Without the 80mm fan it got pretty toasty pretty quickly and I reckon it may suffer, but other boards are passive....
 
ASFAIK all the passive ones are the single core Atom but with good airflow you should be fine.

I prefer the Zotac board with built-in Wifi and a 16x PCI-E slot personally (ION-F-E I think it is). Can be had for £110 if you shop around.
 
Go get an Acer Revo 3610 if you dont mind no dvd drive.

I got the dual core 1.6 / 4gb ram / 500 gig hd for 290 and i use media portal and it plays everything upto 1080p flawless.

it also has hardware accel for hd video files from the inbuilt nvidia gfx unit.

also comes with wireless mouse and keyboard... bought a cheap windows remote and ir receiver and can control mediaportal completley with that.
 
3dcandy said:
Mine does now Adam, but only because my case has an 80mm fan blowing down over the heatsink. I just removed the header cable rather than the whole fan in case I remove it or sell it on. Without the 80mm fan it got pretty toasty pretty quickly and I reckon it may suffer, but other boards are passive....
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I've got a 120mm spinning in the front of the case but when I killed the CPU fan it got hot fast, and hung when I ran prime so not encouraging! Will hunt down a quieter fan I think.

Thanks!
Adam
 
Baboonanza said:
ASFAIK all the passive ones are the single core Atom but with good airflow you should be fine.

I prefer the Zotac board with built-in Wifi and a 16x PCI-E slot personally (ION-F-E I think it is). Can be had for £110 if you shop around.
Click to expand...

The Zotac boards seem fine, I got my Asus from a MM deal with case and a 250gb lappy hd - which is the performance killer for me. Had plans for a hd swap, but that seagate decided to commit suicide!
 
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