New build: low wattage (<20w) idle, totally passive, gaming HTPC

LadFromWales · 27 Jan 2012 at 22:19

I was all set on building a HTPC based on Llano, but of course, reading anywhere on the net you get scare mongered into believing the Llano is a terrible alternative to an i3!

All I want my HTPC to do is play films and music, with the audio output over HDMI. As media is stored on another box it'll only need a 64GB SSD.

Prices I've come up with:-
A8-3800 - £104.86
Streacom FC8 - £130.00
PicoPSU 150-XT - £32.95
A suitable brick, seems to be about £40
Asus F1A75-I Deliuxe - £113.96
Crucial Ballistix 8GB - £31.99
Crucial RealSSD 64GB - £83.99
£537.75

It all sounded cheap until I added it all together with the cost of the PSU!

Bigsy · 28 Jan 2012 at 08:56

Ok, just music and film so why do you need a 3800? 3500 is more than enough you could easy go lower than that.

Why do you need 150w psu? Mine was under £20 and I bought a 12v 10a brick for £11.

Where are you shopping? I paid £20 less for the mobo!

That brings your total to ~£430 without even really trying.

LadFromWales · 28 Jan 2012 at 14:44

Cheers for trust message, now:

Code:

CPU	A6-3500			£64.99
Mobo	Asus F1A75-I Deluxe	£94.99	
RAM	Crucial Ball. Sport 8GB	£31.99	
HDD	Crucial RealSSD 64GB	£83.99	
Case	Streacom FC8 Fanless	£130.00
PSU	DC-DC 120W		£15.99	
PSUp	AC Adaptor 120W		£15.99	
				£437.94

Much better!

Though none include shipping. Certainly doesn't look too bad now! Case and motherboard cost half of the build alone! Just how it is I guess.

pioneer2000 · 30 Jan 2012 at 15:27

Guys - where are you getting a pico psu for so cheap?

Scryus · 30 Jan 2012 at 15:58

Very slick. Pretty expensive case, but it looks great!

Bigsy · 30 Jan 2012 at 17:45

On the face of it maybe but actually I think the case its pretty cheap, people pay £90 for some non passive itx cases, and this one is very high quality, it's all very think aluminium and far cheaper than any other passive cases I could find.

Mei · 1 Feb 2012 at 16:40

can any1 tell me what remote & keyboard that is please?
thanks

Bigsy · 1 Feb 2012 at 20:48

It comes with the mobo, I don't personally use it, but its not bad, I did find that the range was a little short on it.

Mei · 1 Feb 2012 at 23:10

dam thats a shame i think it looks cool
i was looking at a case similar to that recently i think the same make but it didnt have the heatpipe thing, i guess you could still go fanless with them new dual core with heatpipe on the motherboard
im jealous tho do want! i wonder if it can play tribes

Subliminal Aura · 1 Feb 2012 at 23:17

pioneer2000 said:
Guys - where are you getting a pico psu for so cheap?

Otis Reading sitting on the dock of the

arad85 · 3 Feb 2012 at 14:57

LadFromWales said:
I was all set on building a HTPC based on Llano, but of course, reading anywhere on the net you get scare mongered into believing the Llano is a terrible alternative to an i3!

All I want my HTPC to do is play films and music, with the audio output over HDMI. As media is stored on another box it'll only need a 64GB SSD.

What's wrong with a Shuttle XS35GT. Just bought one, with 30G SSD and 2G memory (running Linux) and it plays everything I have here through xbmc. Even played the 10bit file perfectly happily (maxed out at 80% of one of the 4 CPUs).

I'm really impressed with it.

LadFromWales · 4 Feb 2012 at 00:19

arad85 - Seems it has an Atom CPU. I'd like a bit more power than that available with an Atom. It may have more than simply media playing duties ahead of it!

But of course, for a pure XBMC box (running Linux of course!), an Atom, ION, whatever tiny box is perfect!

(Arch Linux user)

arad85 · 4 Feb 2012 at 01:40

LadFromWales said:
arad85 - Seems it has an Atom CPU. I'd like a bit more power than that available with an Atom. It may have more than simply media playing duties ahead of it!

Well you didn't say that in your list of requirements

Edit: I have 3 xbmc machines here ranging from an older Atom/Ion to an E8400. Can't tell the difference between them for playback...

LadFromWales · 4 Feb 2012 at 11:34

Aye. Video playback just needs a chip with hardware support, very little outlay or power required.

I simply couldn't list everything I may task a computer of doing. I'd just rather have a proper one with power to do all I can throw at it, and consume as little as possible when not!

I'd happily get an atom based machine for my mum though, stick it to the back of her TV!

arad85 · 4 Feb 2012 at 13:01

LadFromWales said:
I simply couldn't list everything I may task a computer of doing.

I'm not the norm though (although I may be around here

). We have 9 computers in a house of 3 people, ranging from a beatup laptop used to configure routers and switches/interface to anything that needs a serial port to an overclocked i7-2600K used for photo editing/video recoding. My HTPCs are only ever tasked with playing video, keeping the library up to date and recording stuff off air. Low power consumption and silence are more important than processing power for those (as long as they can play video fine and run the UI quickly enough, I'm happy

).

suitcase · 4 Feb 2012 at 14:14

I can't see any cheap 120w power adapters anywhere? Also, most shop bought itx oc's seem to use 65w adapters... Why does everyone suggest 120w ones?

gropingmantis · 4 Feb 2012 at 14:59

suitcase said:
I can't see any cheap 120w power adapters anywhere? Also, most shop bought itx oc's seem to use 65w adapters... Why does everyone suggest 120w ones?

To the 'bay! Search for 12v 10a power supply/adaptor. A 65W will only give you a max of 65W even if it is attached to a 120W PSU so best to go for a 120W otherwise you may as well have bought a cheaper PSU.

arad85 · 4 Feb 2012 at 15:35

gropingmantis said:
A 65W will only give you a max of 65W even if it is attached to a 120W PSU so best to go for a 120W otherwise you may as well have bought a cheaper PSU.

Can you explain that in English please?

If a system only draws 40W, whether you power it with a 60W, 120W or 500W power supply, it will still only draw 40W. The only thing a 120W power supply has over a 60W one when taking 40W load is that it may heat up less as the supply is designed for a higher draw.

You might also want a beefier power supply for peace of mind and possible expandability later on.

Bigsy · 4 Feb 2012 at 15:51

I paid £11 for my 120w brick, it was actually advertised as a 12v 10a LED power supply but it had a 2.5mm*5.5mm connector which tends to be the standard for picopsu's.

Bigsy · 4 Feb 2012 at 15:58

arad85 said:
Well you didn't say that in your list of requirements

Edit: I have 3 xbmc machines here ranging from an older Atom/Ion to an E8400. Can't tell the difference between them for playback...

I agree I have a atom+ion and a celeron+ion (nd22) they run xbmc very well, on linux too which is a nice bonus in my book. My issue with them is the very poor idle power draw.

I keep my boxes on 24/7 (well just this box now) so idle power is important to me, I couldn't get the atom system to idle under 29w and the celeron was about 24>25w and when you consider there repetitively poor performace I decided on doing what I have done.

I get better idle power 24/7 as this box is now my home server + nas, and I now have headroom to play a bit of pro evo on the big tv when friends come round etc.