Liv Zen - Can I build something better/cheaper?

apple_man77 · 18 Jul 2012 at 16:26

Hello.

I'm wanting something that'll automatically burn CD's to a NAS drive and also work as a PC when required.

I won't be doing any gaming at all it'll just be used for a little bit of internet browsing/spotify playback and thats it.

The Liv Zen seems to tick most of the boxes and I like the look of the case.

However as I'll be burning everything straight to a NAS drive I'm not sure I require a 1TB hard drive and would rather spend the money on a smaller (128gb?) SSD instead.

Also from the specs its running a 1.86 Atom CPU. I'd probably prefer an i3 if possible to make it a little more future proof should I fancy running Plex/XBMC.

So I basically want to know can I build something in the same/similar case as the Zen, that does pretty much the same thing only a little faster and cheaper?

Max budget is £400 but I'd ideally like to spend £300 if possible not including software to make it a worthwhile saving.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LIV-Zen-1...ng_Servers&hash=item3cc54301b0#ht_3453wt_1397
Thanks for any help.
Mark

Bigsy · 18 Jul 2012 at 20:13

Built this for a little over £400: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18360592&highlight=streacom

Same case but this rig is 100% silent, switch out the board and cpu for i3 if you wish, but the llano is cheaper plus its gpu power might come in handy for encode/decoding.

apple_man77 · 18 Jul 2012 at 21:53

Thanks Bigsy thats a lovely little machine you've put together there and really liking that case, its slightly different to the Wesena one I was looking at but liking the idea of no fans.

http://www.wesena.co.uk/product.php/5/2/itx2

apple_man77 · 19 Jul 2012 at 13:22

Well I think I've built something better but certainly not cheaper :-(

Using the same case as bigsy along with a Pico PSU - Slim line slot loading Blu ray drive - Gigabyte GA-H61N USB3 Mobo - Intel i5 CPU, Crucial 64GB M4 SSD, Crucial 4gb RAM.

Total £661 :-(

£260 over budget and more than the Liv Zen - Back to the drawing board!

Martynt74 · 19 Jul 2012 at 16:29

It might not look as good but theres also the standard Vortexbox which runs the same software

www.vortexbox.co.uk

Bigsy · 21 Jul 2012 at 19:38

apple_man77 said:
Well I think I've built something better but certainly not cheaper

Using the same case as bigsy along with a Pico PSU - Slim line slot loading Blu ray drive - Gigabyte GA-H61N USB3 Mobo - Intel i5 CPU, Crucial 64GB M4 SSD, Crucial 4gb RAM.

Total £661

£260 over budget and more than the Liv Zen - Back to the drawing board!

The Liv Zen doesn't have blue ray or an ssd does it?, It also has a **** cpu, so why did you jump all the way to an i5? Not surprised its £260 more.

Think some guy in my thread built a perfectly good machine, on amd with a5-3500 for a shade over £400, mine wasnt much more.

zel · 21 Jul 2012 at 21:19

Here's the PC I've just put together for my dad. This has taken a few months bargain hunting but I've been in no rush. The case had to be modded slightly to fit the shuriken. It will be upgraded to Windows8 come launch (and the upgrade promotion)

£61 - Antec isk300-65 (new)
£12 - 120W LiShin PSU (used)
£40 - Intel DH61DL (new)
£38 - 8gb Crucial DDR3 (new)
£90 - i5-2400t (used)
£40 - Window-XP Retail (used)
£03 - Atheros mini-PCIe Wifi (used)
£90 - Crucial M4 120GB (new)
£25 - Scythe Shuriken (new)
£24 - Liteon Bluray-ROM/DVD-RW (new)
£11 - 2x TPLink Antennas (new)
£434

apple_man77 · 21 Jul 2012 at 21:40

Bigsy said:
The Liv Zen doesn't have blue ray or an ssd does it?, It also has a **** cpu, so why did you jump all the way to an i5? Not surprised its £260 more.

Think some guy in my thread built a perfectly good machine, on amd with a5-3500 for a shade over £400, mine wasnt much more.

I think the mo-bo I chose was socket 1155 and I could only find i5's with that socket so opted for that although agree it is a little ott.

Using that case means I need to use a PICO PSU which isn't cheap and the same with a slot loading blu ray optical drive.