Small form media PC

Shill

Shill

Shill

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15 Jun 2004
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I am in the market to replace my current big desktop PC that I am using as a media server with something a lot smaller that i can put in my living room, so it needs to be quiet and energy efficient.

I want to run Win 7, Utorrent, Servvio media server and also use it to connect to my TV and stream some web content, I am getting a synology NAS which will reside upstairs in my office via my Gig home network.

I would like a SSD and enough processor and memory to run the above, it also needs a HDMI port.

I have looked at the bundles here and cant really find anything suitable. Can some kind soul spec me something so I can price it up.

I don't really want to be paying any more than £350.00

Thanks in advance
 
Richdog said:
OCUk have some nice little custom-built "Nano" units, but unfortunately they STILL haven't updated them with Ivy Bridge processors or chassis with USB 3-0 ports, which should now be standard at this stage! http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-075-OP&groupid=43&catid=2476

Please sort it out and update them OCUK, i'll buy one myself!
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Yes, I looked at this but it doesn't have HDMI out. But this is the sort of thing i'm looking at, or The Acer Aspire 3990/5
 
The Acer Aspire x3990 is a desktop PC mate.

That looks good but is a bit pricey when you take into account I need to add HDD and memory.
 
Shill said:
The Acer Aspire x3990 is a desktop PC mate.

That looks good but is a bit pricey when you take into account I need to add HDD and memory.
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Ahh I clicked the link it made under Acer and it went to notebooks, guess it was auto-parsed.

ZXSpectrum said:
I bought a Arctic MC-001 Great price (Bought direct but the dollar rate has gone pretty poor atm) and a very good little unit. :)
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Intel Atom... no thanks! Pretty old now too, was released on late 2011, right?
 
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I'd have a look at the Intel NUC DC3217IYE
stick a mSATA SSD and some cheap and cheerful 4GB, SODIMM DDR3 RAM and you are away.

HDMI port, dual core Ivy Bridge processor with hyper-threading (2 cores, 4 threads) and VESA mountable for your TV.

Only downside is that mSATA drives get pricey the more storage you need. But getting a 60GB drive and adding a USB HDD to it.
 
R088ieS86 said:
I'd have a look at the Intel NUC DC3217IYE
stick a mSATA SSD and some cheap and cheerful 4GB, SODIMM DDR3 RAM and you are away.

HDMI port, dual core Ivy Bridge processor with hyper-threading (2 cores, 4 threads) and VESA mountable for your TV.

Only downside is that mSATA drives get pricey the more storage you need. But getting a 60GB drive and adding a USB HDD to it.
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The CPU in there is quite low powered though, only half the processing power of a normal i3 3220. It's also missing USB 3.0, which is a shame especially for the money.
 
It has more power than you would think.
USB 3.0 is still mostly pointless if you are writing to HDDs as they can't write/read quick enough to saturate the bandwidth. I have only found one device that needs the full 5GB/s throughput and that is for video capturing.
The HD4000 GPU is more than capable of playing video content and SMS isn't that taxing.
 
R088ieS86 said:
It has more power than you would think.
USB 3.0 is still mostly pointless if you are writing to HDDs as they can't write/read quick enough to saturate the bandwidth. I have only found one device that needs the full 5GB/s throughput and that is for video capturing.
The HD4000 GPU is more than capable of playing video content and SMS isn't that taxing.
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USB 3.0 should be standard on any device bought nowadays, especially a media centre that you will keep for years. Speed differences are noticeable on pretty much any device connected to it with a native USB 3.0 connection.
 
Richdog said:
Intel Atom... no thanks! Pretty old now too, was released on late 2011, right?
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Depends what you want really. Mine works fantastically. I use Openelec with XBMC but have also ran windows 7 and 8 on it with an SSD and it functions perfectly as a very low powered system.
 
I would look at a PulseBox at personally (~£250 including SSD, can't link to the website as they sell direct) or build something with the same chipset myself, although it wouldn't be as quick as the A8 in the Saphire it's cheaper and will handle anything media related better than an Atom.

And unless you have a really strong reason for Windows go with OpenElec.
 
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