Yet another design

[jayrock]

Hi all,

I spent quite some time thinking about the platform for my first HTPC. It shall play DVD and record and playback TV, including time shifting. TV is connected by S-Video and possibly DVI later. Of course the system must be stylish and as silent as possible also.

The idea is to (1) get it all up and running, (2) get it silent.

This is my proposed setup:

- Silverstone LC04
- MB Asus K8S-MX
- Processor AMD Sempron 2800+, 256 KB Cache
- DDR-RAM 512MB Infineon
- DVD drive Samsung SHW162
- 2.5" HDD SAMSUNG MP0804H
- Logitech Cordless Desktop Express PS/2
- Graphics Sapphire Radeon 9250
- TV card Pinnacle PCTV PMC 310i V3
- OS Windows XP
- ... and of course: MediaPortal

Would you agree that this is a good setup for a start? It is just within my budget of EUR 750!

Thanks for your comments

/jayrock

[jayrock]

Just figured that the Sempron 2800 won't support C&Q, so I'd go for the AMD Sempron 3000+ instead.

/Jayrock

[flokel]

Hi,

have a look at this board:
http://www.geizhals.at/deutschland/a162148.html

it already has a dx9 compatible gpu onboard, is passivly cooled und pretty
cheap.
I use it in my htpc and there are no problems with it.

[rosco99]

I have a similar set up. I chose the 9550 Radeon video card because it has DVI output.
I have a Pentium 4 processor which I had to cool with a large silent fan to get the noise level acceptable.

[tklon]

You should have a look at the possibilities of the riser cards. With this motherboard you can only put one AGP an no PCI card into your HTPC.
Have a look here:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/de/products-lc04.htm

A microATX board needs to have 3 PCI and one AGP slot to fit in that you can use one PCI and one APG with the riser cards.

Instead of that board with SiS chipset you can use the K8V-MX with a VIA K8M800. It also support CnQ. With that chipset you can use RMClock or CrystalCPUID to do this. It should work.

The Radeon 9250 has only native DX8.1 support. So I would recommend the Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600 Lite Retail. With DX9 support and passive cooling. Although I connected only via composite out to the tv the TV-Out quality is very good.

Why do you build in a notebook hdd? The drive is mounted in this direction "|" and not "_". :roll: Perhaps you get trouble because of that. Did you see the Samsung HA250JC (SpinPoint V120CE, U-133) with 250 GB. I read in some forums that it is very quiet to and it is special disigned for Consumer Electronics.

[fathead]

For motherboards, its very very hard to look past the new Nvidia Tforce Chipset which are pretty much designed for HTPC use in my opinion. The best of the bunch must be this offering from ASUS:

A8N-VM CSM



- Support AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64FX / Athlon 64 X2 / Athlon 64
- NVIDIA GeForce 6150 + nForce 430
- Dual-channel DDR400
- PCI Express architecture
- Integrated GeForce6 GPU
- Dual VGA OuputVI-D & RGB
- NVIDIA Gigabit LAN with NVIDIA ActiveArmor Firewall
- 4 x SATA II (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, RAID 5)
- 1394a Support
- High Definition Audio

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l...66&modelmenu=1

[jayrock]

Hi

first of all big thanks to all your comments! I have a couple of questions to tklon's post though:

Originally Posted by tklon

You should have a look at the possibilities of the riser cards. With this motherboard you can only put one AGP an no PCI card into your HTPC.
Have a look here:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/de/products-lc04.htm

A microATX board needs to have 3 PCI and one AGP slot to fit in that you can use one PCI and one APG with the riser cards.

I checked the silverstone site. How did you find out from that info that a microATX board needs to have 3 PCI and one AGP? The Silverstone site doesn't talk about microATX, right?

Considering your comment a board like the A8N-VM as proposed by fathead wouldn't fit, right?

Regarding HDD, it is just my personal experience that 3.5" is much louder than 2.5", though I know that there has been a lot of discussions around this. I didn't know about any problems related to vertical mounting - can you elaborate on this?

Thanks for you your support!

/jayrock

[fathead]

The silverstone LC04 will happily fit the motherboard I have mentioned, and will allow you to install 2 upgrade cards (depends on the riser that comes with the case). i would suggest you ask for the dual PCI riser, allowing for 2 tuners or a tuner + wireless card or soundcard.

As for hard drives, take a look at the Samsung Spinpoints - the 200Gb & 250Gb SATA II drives with NCQ are excellent. Easily the quietest 3.5" HDDs on the market.

[fathead]

Originally Posted by jayrock

Just figured that the Sempron 2800 won't support C&Q, so I'd go for the AMD Sempron 3000+ instead.

/Jayrock

Cool & quiet is not supported by socket A processors full stop as far as I am aware. Also cool & quiet is a feature of the motherboard & CPU, both must support it.

I would suggest:

- Silverstone LC04 with Dual PCI Riser
- ASUS A8N-VM CSM
- Processor AMD A64 3000+
- DDR-RAM 512MB Geil Value
- DVD drive Samsung SHW162
- 3.5" 200Gb Samsung Spinpoint SATA II NCQ
- Logitech Cordless Desktop Express PS/2
- TV card Pinnacle PCTV PMC 310i V3
- OS Windows XP

[tklon]

Originally Posted by jayrock

I checked the silverstone site. How did you find out from that info that a microATX board needs to have 3 PCI and one AGP? The Silverstone site doesn't talk about microATX, right?

Problem is that the AGP slot needs to be close to the backpanel. Otherwise you are not able to install the 2 risers. The position of the agp slot is on the right place when there are also 3 pci slots. If you look at the pictures of the K8S-MX and the K8V-MX you will see what I mean.

The board fathead suggest looks very good. It will fit, but you need the dual pci riser card. That's ok, because with that chipset and the good onboard gfx you don't need another gfx card. But you don't have S-Video connection, only VGA and DVI with that setup.

With the 2.5" hdd you perhaps need to improvise because it is mounted vertically just between the bottom of the case and a small metal piece on the other side. It will work, but I think it is easier to go for a 3.5" with more capacity. Up to your mind.