Low end HTPC

Nevakonaza · 1 Sep 2011 at 08:13

Hi all,

"Might" be building me up a Low end HTPC from components i already have lying around,all i would need is a cheap LGA 775 board and low end GFX card like a Nvidia 210 which i could get both for around £40 ish used.

But i was wondering if once it was built if it would cope for playing Blu Ray on a 37" TV.

Specs would be...(In red would be *to get*)

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86Ghz (Could OC to 2Ghz)
3GB Ram (1x 2gb + 2x 512mb sticks for Dual channel)
LGA 775 Board
Nvidia 210 512mb Graphics card.
Seagate Barracuda 7200 Rpm 120Gb IDE Drive (Quite fast & quiet actually)
Samsung Blu Ray Drive
Gigabyte SuperB 460W PSU.
Cheap HTPC sytle case
Windows Vista X64 Bit

What you think?

monkeyspank · 1 Sep 2011 at 09:05

You should be able to get a motherboard with onboard gfx that would do the job. Make sure it is capable of things like audio over HDMI and hardware video decoding and you're golden.

gt_junkie · 1 Sep 2011 at 09:23

Will it purely be bluray or do you intend to use media center at some point?

Overall the specs look fine to me but personally I'd go for a little more grunt than the 210 (or 4350 which is virtually the ATi equivalent).

Transitions within media center and some bluray playback software can be jerky on low end and onboard GPU's. I've used a 4350 in the past and experienced just that.

I now use a 240 in mine and it's been ace.

2nd hand would be good value but if buying new you'd probably be looking at something like a 430 or 5570.

gt

Participant · 1 Sep 2011 at 09:47

If you go for the onboard GPU, avoid anything less than the G45 chipset from Intel. The Zotac 9300 s775 board for example would be ideal.

I'm getting a discrete GPU anyway so it doesn't bother me, but the G41 chipset on the Zotac G41ITX A-E board I've got struggles with h.264 Blu-ray rips with my E2140 @1.8 GHz, as it doesn't fully offload the leg work to the GPU.

Nevakonaza · 1 Sep 2011 at 10:46

monkeyspank said:
You should be able to get a motherboard with onboard gfx that would do the job. Make sure it is capable of things like audio over HDMI and hardware video decoding and you're golden.

Yeah i thought about that,But been intergrated i did not think it would cope too well with Blu Ray 1080p.

gt_junkie said:
Will it purely be bluray or do you intend to use media center at some point?
gt

Well yeah at the moment just to play Blu Rays,DVDs and id do the occasional game of Starcraft an browse the net on it.
Which im sure it would be capable of.

Robbie G said:
If you go for the onboard GPU, avoid anything less than the G45 chipset from Intel. The Zotac 9300 s775 board for example would be ideal.

I'm getting a discrete GPU anyway so it doesn't bother me, but the G41 chipset on the Zotac G41ITX A-E board I've got struggles with h.264 Blu-ray rips with my E2140 @1.8 GHz, as it doesn't fully offload the leg work to the GPU.

Thanks for the heads up,Like i said its not a definate that i will be building it yet.