Spec me a HTPC

Supercow

Supercow

Supercow

Soldato
Joined
30 Aug 2003
Posts
14,225
Location
Straya
I would love to build a nice little HTPC and would like some reccomendations please.
I would generally like to buy most things from the MM, but would like to know what are the things that i should look to buy (case, GFX card etc etc)
A remote control is a must ofc.

I love the looks of the Shuttle SFF's, but they are quite expensive and I wanna do this on the cheap as poss but still get bang for buck (sentence made sense in my head ;) )

Reccomendtations and advice much appreciated.
 
If its purely for media and not heavy High definition de-coding, then you can basically setup a HTPC machine with the cheapest components you can find.

I had a Ideq Biostar 200N with a Xp2200 processor
1gb PC3200 RAM
Nvidia FX5200 passive graphics card
MCE150 TV card
Running on Windows Media Centre with remote.

If your thinking of recording TV you will need the largest Hard drive you can afford in there as it eats up space very quickly.
 
if you go on the bay, then you might be able to pick up a pentium 3 setup quite cheaply , which as said before providing your not doing any heavy HD work will be fine.
 
The microsoft remote comes with a USB IR receiver.

As for spec I'd suggest

Case: Antec aria, nsk 2400 or ideally antec fusion (wouldn't look out of place under a nice HD tv and has a vfd. Not bad value at just over £100)

Chip: A high end socket A chip will do, but i'd strongly recommend at least a 754 sempron or ideally 3000+ 939 or AM2 chip mostly because they run so cool. Last thing you want is a noisy media center and these can be cooled passively with a decent heatsink and case airflow.

Ram: 512mb is just about enough, but 1gb for comfort. If you go for integrated gfx you really need to be running dual channel

Motherboard: On socket 939 the board of choice was the MSI k8NGM2-FID. Integrated 6150 gfx, mATX and 7.1 High Def audio are the highlights. There are several AM2 boards out using the same chipset. The 6150gfx are plenty for media center.

Hard drive: You'll soon fill one up recording tv. 160gb min .. ideally 250gig or larger. I'd recommend the samsung 250gb as it is the quietest out there.

Tuner: Freeview cards are preferable as long as you have a decent signal. The Compro T200 is cheap and does the job. Only downside is a "tuner not found" issue once in a while when you first start media center - solved by changing channel. The Terratec 2400i is probably the best value though since it is a dual tuner card and can be found for £63. With the latest drivers people the card seems to work well.

Mpeg2 decoder: The nvidia purevideo decoder is generally acknowledged to be the best, but i think that is based on dated reviews. I've gone with the powerdvd 7 one because it gives an excellent picture and none of the issues or picture artifacts that i get with the nvidia one.

Marc
 
Right, got everything I need, now one more question though.
Does anyone know of a AGP GFX/TV tuner card, that has Freeview and will suffice for Windows media centre purposes?

Ideally I would like once of the ones that you can watch and record different channel, but it's not a biggy.
Like I said, will ONLY be used for media, so the card just has to be able to run windows and view whatever Media im watching.

Cheers
 
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