HTPC Take 2 Sanity Check anyone? (1 Viewer)

BillyTheFish

Portal Pro
September 5, 2008
72
12
Home Country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
This is my 2nd HTPC build (the first one was a while ago and not too successful :oops: )

I have kicked a few ideas around here: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/general-62/smallest-quietest-htpc-possible-97513/

And have decided that I don't really need it to be that small. How does this sound for a well-spec'd HTPC for Media Portal, BluRay/HD Freesat playback and music and emulated games?

HTPC
Case: Origen AE S16T Home Theatre Media Centre Case 7'' Touchscreen - Black - £563.94

CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 - £89.98
H/S and Fan: Cooler Master GeminII S or Scythe Big Shuriken
Mobo: Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3 - £110.68
Ram: G.Skill DIMM 4 GB of DDR3-1600 - £23.85

TV Card: BGT3600 - BlackGold - £166.80

PSU: 400W Seasonic X-400FL Fanless Modular - £118.15

Optical Drive
: re-use a "LG Electronics Blu-Ray & HD-DVD-Rom Combo 16x DVDRW Black SATA" (LG GGC H20L) that I have kicking around

System drive: Crucial 64GB m4 - £76.99

Storage: 1x WD Caviar GP RE2 for Storage (I have this already)

Remote: HP USB Windows Receiver (probably from eBay?) and a Harmony ONE Remote (I have this already)


The questions I have are:

1) The case is pretty small but takes full ATX. Would I be better off with a different MoBo? The G1.Sniper2 looks tastey but I can't justify the price increase.

2) I'm going for a Ramdrive for timeshifting. Is 16GB overkill?

3) Is there anything else I should change/add?
 

Paranoid Delusion

Moderation Manager
  • Premium Supporter
  • June 13, 2005
    13,062
    2,978
    Cheshire
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    Processor and motherboard are both on my list ;)

    Would say 4gb memory is more than enough, sorry unless serious gaming or video reworking cannot see the point, just more heat to get rid of.
     

    Jay_UK

    Test Group
  • Team MediaPortal
  • October 6, 2009
    1,781
    283
    Derby
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    Hi there,

    The case is nice, but I do question the actual use of the inbuilt touch screen display??

    I might be missing something (slightky off topic), but the motherboard seems expensive for what it has compared to AMD based boards?

    16GB is an overkill - but will depend on how many tuners/clients you may have?

    The PSU is good - I have one :D

    J.
     

    BillyTheFish

    Portal Pro
    September 5, 2008
    72
    12
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    Processor and motherboard are both on my list ;)

    Would say 4gb memory is more than enough, sorry unless serious gaming or video reworking cannot see the point, just more heat to get rid of.

    Thanks! I'm not doing any of that so down to 4gb for me then. I just thought it's cheap and would help with the timeshifting but if it doesn't do anything for me and just adds heat, no point I guess.

    edit: I got the idea from this post where he said he needed 12GB of RAM to get timeshifiting working with a ramdisk: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/general-62/ram-disk-advice-100930/#post793413

    Maybe I should just give up that idea and us the WD HD for that instead.

    Hi there,

    The case is nice, but I do question the actual use of the inbuilt touch screen display??


    My idea is to have a clone of the main screen on there that I can use to control the HTPC for the purposes of playing music and internet radio etc. (and possibly checking the weather?) without having to turn the TV on and mess around with a remote control or keyboard.

    It's an expensive case and an expensive way to do it I suppose but I couldn't think of a better idea that is sufficiently WAG friendly.
     

    pilehave

    Community Skin Designer
  • Premium Supporter
  • April 2, 2008
    2,566
    521
    Hornslet
    Home Country
    Denmark Denmark
    You do not list a GFX-card? Remember that Intels integrated GPU still can't play 24p (23.976Hz) properly (well, at least last time I checked). If BluRay or BluRay-rips is on the menu I would take another board/cpu.
     

    BillyTheFish

    Portal Pro
    September 5, 2008
    72
    12
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    You do not list a GFX-card? Remember that Intels integrated GPU still can't play 24p (23.976Hz) properly (well, at least last time I checked). If BluRay or BluRay-rips is on the menu I would take another board/cpu.

    I had a look into that and, as far as I can tell, it does still have the 24p bug but it's not that noticeable (if at all). I do want to play bluray but I thought I would just try it and see if I notice it -unless anyone thinks it's noticeable?
     

    BillyTheFish

    Portal Pro
    September 5, 2008
    72
    12
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    Anyone else? Also, does anyone know of an equivalent ATX motherboard I could go with? The case will take it.

    I'm probably ordering the bits tomorrow...
     

    BillyTheFish

    Portal Pro
    September 5, 2008
    72
    12
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    Only thing I might go for was a i5, but that me being overkill, and not necessary as now large hdd's, no need to convert recorded tv to save space.

    :D

    Thanks very much! You know how it is, last minute worries that the bits you are about to buy won't work together no matter how much you have researched them...

    ...off to buy them now, wish me luck!
     

    BillyTheFish

    Portal Pro
    September 5, 2008
    72
    12
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    Processor and motherboard are both on my list ;)

    I went with the i5 in the end -couldn't resisit it.

    Careful with that motherboard! I decided that I couldn't quite justify spending nearly £600 on a new case when I had a perfectly good Antec Fusion Black laying around. The only problem I've found is for some really stupid reason, the SATA connectors (bar one) on the motherboard are all set at 90 degrees to the motherboard. :mad:

    This means that it was a very, very tight fit getting SATA cables in to them and the board and SATA connectors are under a certain amount of stress as a result. With two SATA cables, one above the other, it puts too much stress on the board and connectors and I wouldn't want to risk it. 90 degree cables don't work because they angle in the wrong direction.

    Anyway, if you do go for this motherboard, just make sure that your case has enough clearance for SATA cables on the corner/edge diagonally opposite to the back panel ports!
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom