HTPC config, is there enough ooommph? (1 Viewer)

komita

Portal Member
August 19, 2011
32
2
Home Country
Hi guys,just a few days ago I discovered the world of HTPC's and I'm on my way to building my first HTPC.
I am trying to do it on the cheap ($350ish) and here is what I have so far, can you guys take a look and tell me
if I am lacking power?

It will be used on a 55" plasma (in a couple of months) mostly for watching movies from ISO files, DVD's and streeaming (Hulu/Netflix) so I want to make sure it can handle it. Also I have a DVD drive now but I will be replacing it with a blu-ray so I want to make sure it can handle that too.

I dont have a large HDD in the list since I plan on using a 500GB 7200rpm one I have at home and can always expand down the line. But I think the 8GB SSD although SATA 3GB should give me good boot-up speed, no?

I am mostly worried about the CPU/GPU (which is the onboard Radeon HD 4250 on this motherboard)

LITE-ON DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04
BIOSTAR TA880GU3+ AM3 AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana 3.1GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor ADX445WFGMBOX
Kingston ValueRAM 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model KVR1333D3K2/4GR
Kingston SSDNow S100 SS100S2/8G 2.5" 8GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Black 0.7mm Thickness SECC Steel 7K09BBA30FNRX Micro ATX Media Center 300W Power Supply / HTPC Case


As a side note I will need a basic TV tuner card and if you can think of a decent one off the top of your head please post.

Thanks!

--komita--
 

mm1352000

Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • September 1, 2008
    21,577
    8,224
    Home Country
    New Zealand New Zealand
    Hi and welcome komita

    I share your concern about whether the GPU would cope. There should be people here that can offer you advice about that though. If worst comes to worst you could use video codecs that don't support hardware acceleration so that the CPU does the video decoding - that might be enough to allow the GPU to do its job without problem.

    The other thing I thought of was the size of the SSD - 8GB isn't very big. It might be too small even for a dedicated OS drive as there wouldn't be much spare area.

    Aside from that, everything looks okay to me. I like the mobo. :)

    mm
     

    captainjack

    Portal Member
    March 25, 2008
    16
    4
    Komita

    If you just want to use this machine for TV and movies (not gaming) then you may want to look at one of these...

    hxxp://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/product_index.aspx?leg=&psn=0001&pid=1034&lid=1

    They are small and low powered and from the reviews look like they can handle HD content very well.
    There are also ASUS and Giga-Byte to look at as well. Asus has wifi and Blutooth.

    My main HTPC client (I use a server to supply clients) is a AMD 4050e 45w cpu with 2GB ram.
    At first I used the onboard ATI 3200 IGP and all was not bad. (No 1080i content though).
    All I have done with this is add an ATI 5450 and it has been treating me very well for over three years now.
    Blu-Ray uses only about 9-20% CPU on average so even low power and low cost systems can do the job very well.

    My next client upgrade will be the ASUS E350 as it is small (perfect for the bedroom) and low powered.
     

    komita

    Portal Member
    August 19, 2011
    32
    2
    Home Country
    mm1352000 thank you, and now that you mentioned it, 8GB is a small drive,
    I have to reconsider it. Damn .. looks like I might have to go with a 30GB one ...

    captainjack, I really like your suggested motherboard combo thingy. I seem to be having trouble finding the exact one you gave me the link to to buy, but I will see the Asus one especially since they offer wireless as you said.

    I do have a question about the 1080i. While doing research on HTPC's I keep running into the fact that 1080i cannot be handled by many systems. First, can the E350 handle it, and second in what scenario would I be playing 1080i ? Dvds/Blu rays and all are 1080p right? so I dont see when I would need to p;ay 1080i
     

    mm1352000

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • September 1, 2008
    21,577
    8,224
    Home Country
    New Zealand New Zealand
    Hi again

    1080i is mostly used for HD television broadcasting. It is cheaper than broadcasting 1080p since it requires half the bandwidth, and it is quite difficult to tell the difference in quality. I can't tell you whether the e350 could handle it...

    mm
     

    komita

    Portal Member
    August 19, 2011
    32
    2
    Home Country
    I see. That explains a lot. Now does this mean that I should not even bother getting a TV tuner card if the E350 cant handle HD over the air, or do the TV a cards do their own 1080i processing?
     

    mm1352000

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • September 1, 2008
    21,577
    8,224
    Home Country
    New Zealand New Zealand
    Hi again

    TV cards don't do any processing apart from maybe a little error correction in the stream. It is the job of codecs to decode the video stream. Some codecs are optimised with the ability to use GPU hardware to decode the video while others are not. This ability is known as hardware accelerated video decoding or DxVA. Most modern GPUs (including the e350 GPU) support DxVA. The issue is that low end GPUs sometimes don't have enough processing power to support DxVA, good quality deinterlacing of high resolution video, and the other "fancy" graphical goodness that MP uses. In other words, viewing 1080i in MP can sometimes be problematic when 1080p is fine. I'm afraid I don't know whether the e350 is powerful enough. You'll either have to take the risk and hope for the best or wait for someone else with an e350 based system to offer their advice...

    mm
     

    komita

    Portal Member
    August 19, 2011
    32
    2
    Home Country
    Thanks bud, that explains a lot, excellent explanation. I might have to wait for a review or maybe a suggestion for a different board/cpu/gpu since I am hoping to be able to receive over the air HD content (mainly for watching news and such on the local channels)

    Ok I have changed my mind. the E350 seems like a great solution but from what I have read it does not have enough power for 1080i.
    I will have to step out of my $300 boundary and go with:

    Intel Core i3-2100T Sandy Bridge 2.5GHz LGA 1155 35W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I32100T
    GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

    To compensate I will hold off of getting the SSD and such until later times, first I will set up on a regular SATA drive.

    Please let me know if anyone thinks I might not be going the right way.

    ------------

    Wow ... just read about the 23.976Hz to 24Hz conversion issue with i3 processors.
    :confused: Just cant be simple. Damn ... NOW what do I do? Where do I turn next?
     

    komita

    Portal Member
    August 19, 2011
    32
    2
    Home Country
    ---------------------------------------------------

    Well after loosing all weekend worrying over all the details I have made my final decision, I will be going back to the E350 setup, only with a Radeon HD 6570 to help me with 1080i

    AVerMedia AVerTVHD Duet - PCTV Tuner (A188 - White Box) MTVHDDUWB PCI-Express x1 Interface - OEM
    hec Black 0.7mm Thickness SECC Steel 7K09BBA30FNRX Micro ATX Media Center 300W Power Supply / HTPC Case
    ASUS E35M1-M PRO Fusion AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD Hudson M1 Micro ATX Motherboard/CPU Combo
    HIS H657H1G Radeon HD 6570 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card
    OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX30GXXX 2.5" 30GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
    G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Desktop Memory Model F3-8500CL7D-8GBRL
    SAMSUNG Black Blu-ray Combo SATA Model SH-B123L LightScribe Support - OEM

    Thanks for steering me in the right direction!
     

    robbo100

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • May 5, 2009
    1,291
    308
    UK
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    I might be too late (you may have already bought it)

    I run an AMD X2 265 which benchmarks at 1979 - which compares to a significantly higher benchmark of 2729 for the X3 445.

    I also run my X2 265 with an ATI HD5450 GPU (again, much slower than the HH6570 you are planning on buying.

    My setup (combined with 2 GB RAM), although massively lower performing than your planned kit easily runs anything mediaportal can throw at it, including blueray playback (using PDVD or from uncompressed MKV files with full HD Audio).

    You could definitely save money if you are not planning on gameing.

    Robbo100
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom