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

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!

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.