Ongoing Ultimate HD HTPC – Budget 2.100€ (1 Viewer)

[stylistic]

Hi,

After about 22.000 hours of running Mediaportal on my old HTPC, time has come for me to step up and build myself ultimate Mediaportal HTPC. After all, software that runs so long, deserves proper hardware

Budget: 2.100€

I'm making:

HTPC case: Moneual MonCaso 932B
Processor: INTEL Core 2 DUO E6750 2.66GHz 4MB LGA775
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce 8600 GT, 256MB GDDR3 Passive
RAM: PATRIOT DDR2, 2GB PC2-6400 800MHZ
5.1 sound card: Bluegears b-Enspirer
HDD: 2x Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB

Need help on:

Motherboard: not decided! Any Suggestions?

Satellite HD Tuner: What is best satellite HD tuner card currently on the market that is well supported on Mediaportal?

Cable HD Tuner: What is best cable HD tuner card currently on the market that is well supported on Mediaportal?

Cable Tuner: What is best cable tuner card currently on the market that is well supported on Mediaportal?

Power Supply (passive): not decided! Any Suggestions?

Remote control: iMON 2.4G DT… Any Suggestions? I’m looking for remote with soft buttons, and scrolling wheel (like IPOD), but looks like there’s no such thing on RC market…

I plan on running VISTA Ultimate. Reason for this is, I’m waiting for NVIDIA to release XP drivers for HD video decoding H.264 (difference in CPU usage is enormous comparing XP (80%) and Vista (20%)). Until then, I’ll try running VISTA. Are there any other outstanding issues running MP on Vista?

Are there any TV (HD) Tuner card benchmarks out there worth checking?

everyone, your help is much appreciated!

 

[joystick]

HTPC case: Moneual MonCaso 932B
Processor: INTEL Core 2 DUO E6750 2.66GHz 4MB LGA775
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce 8600 GT, 256MB GDDR3 Passive
RAM: PATRIOT DDR2, 2GB PC2-6400 800MHZ
5.1 sound card: Bluegears b-Enspirer
HDD: 2x Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB

Case: Take a look at Zalman cases (e.g. 160, also of you prefere touchscreen ) because they are really good from a quality point of view .

GPU: I would think about adding a ATI HD 2600 Pro for HD content. Your CPU will be idle (and cool), therefore most of the time...(HD-content produces 5% CPU usage)

SoundCard: only if you need analog out, if you use SPDIF/optical out you can definately stick with an onboard solution.

HDD: absolutely right.

Motherboard: not decided! Any Suggestions?

Satellite HD Tuner: What is best satellite HD tuner card currently on the market that is well supported on Mediaportal?

Cable HD Tuner: What is best cable HD tuner card currently on the market that is well supported on Mediaportal?

Cable Tuner: What is best cable tuner card currently on the market that is well supported on Mediaportal?

Power Supply (passive): not decided! Any Suggestions?

MB: I would definatley use an Intel P35 atm.

Cable HD: As far as I know there is no dedicated cabel HD tuner in the (european) market, but you can watch Cabel HD content with the Firedtv DVB-C Card for example. Works flawless.

PS: I wouldb't use a passive one, because you need to get the heat out of the case...maybe have a look a Seasonic M12-600, or a Be-quiet one.

ATM I think Vista is a promblem-source in Media PC installations, also as far as HD-accelleration is concerned...

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Vista uses 1gb of memory (2gb installed) just to run itself.

Yes it has bells and whistles, but can honestly say do not use on a day to day basis.

I agree with the overall vote is XP pro, purely for it's hardware\software support.

 

[deebo]

why are people buying these overkill cpus for htpc's

id go for low power usage over cpu power anyday

my old 3800+x2 played 1080p flawlessly, and a passive 8500gt handles bluray and hddvd

my new htpc will be (new as in my server broke and had to put my htpc hardware in it:
2.3ghz amd dualcore (45tdp "BE" model)
2GB mem
8500gt
250GB hdd just for random stuff and OS (server has 2TB storage)
terratec diversity dvb-t dualtuner

this one will handle 1080p just fine (ive watched plenty with the slower 3800+ x2)
and total cost is like
cpu 90eur
mem 70eur
gpu 100eur
motherboard 50eur
dvb tuner 100eur

total 410eur, add a case of your choice (im using an antec nsk2400) and a remote (im using mce receiver with harmony525)

 

[stylistic]

HTPC case: Moneual MonCaso 932B
Processor: INTEL Core 2 DUO E6750 2.66GHz 4MB LGA775
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce 8600 GT, 256MB GDDR3 Passive
RAM: PATRIOT DDR2, 2GB PC2-6400 800MHZ
5.1 sound card: Bluegears b-Enspirer
HDD: 2x Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB

Case: Take a look at Zalman cases (e.g. 160, also of you prefere touchscreen ) because they are really good from a quality point of view .

GPU: I would think about adding a ATI HD 2600 Pro for HD content. Your CPU will be idle (and cool), therefore most of the time...(HD-content produces 5% CPU usage)

SoundCard: only if you need analog out, if you use SPDIF/optical out you can definately stick with an onboard solution.

HDD: absolutely right.

Motherboard: not decided! Any Suggestions?

Satellite HD Tuner: What is best satellite HD tuner card currently on the market that is well supported on Mediaportal?

Cable HD Tuner: What is best cable HD tuner card currently on the market that is well supported on Mediaportal?

Cable Tuner: What is best cable tuner card currently on the market that is well supported on Mediaportal?

Power Supply (passive): not decided! Any Suggestions?

MB: I would definatley use an Intel P35 atm.

Cable HD: As far as I know there is no dedicated cabel HD tuner in the (european) market, but you can watch Cabel HD content with the Firedtv DVB-C Card for example. Works flawless.

PS: I wouldb't use a passive one, because you need to get the heat out of the case...maybe have a look a Seasonic M12-600, or a Be-quiet one.

ATM I think Vista is a promblem-source in Media PC installations, also as far as HD-accelleration is concerned...

for very valid input!

I’ve decided not to go with Moneual case, instead I’ll look for something in 300-400€ range. I don’t actually need touchscreen and don’t see any practical advantages of having it, so I’ll rather look for something with nice front-end and good cooling.

GPU: I don’t mind if my CPU runs on 20% when I’m watching HD content. Adding additional card would mean even more power consumption, so I’ll try to avoid that. But anyway, thanks for good suggestion!

MB: I’ve decided to go with GIGABYTE GA P35 DQ6 (200€)

Satelite HD tuner: The more I look, the more questions I have. Every single tuner I’ve checked, has some negative feedback when used in MP. I haven’t found a single tuner that everyone would say…”YES, this is the one that works without any problems”…. The ones I’ve been looking at are:

- FloppyDTV S2 for digital satellite (DVB-S and DVB-S2)
- Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800

Would those two deliver good (best) picture?

PS: Thanks for suggesting that. Makes a lot of sense! Will stick to your proposal. I’ll probably go for Be-quiet.

As far as HD acceleration, I’ve been looking at results where Vista delivered much better results than XP. Reason for that was that NVIDIA didn’t deliver proper drivers yet, so with GPU 8600, CPU was running at 80% under XP while same configuration went down to 20% under VISTA. I’ll have to check if this is still true, maybe they released new drivers…

I’m running 3 laptops under Vista Ultimate, and I’m aware of how buggy Vista is. Explorer is crashing a lot, and drivers are mostly still in beta phase… but… the user experience is far much better than under XP, at least when multimedia is concerned. If Nvidia XP drivers get out soon, I’ll definitively run XP Pro.

I’m prioritizing this build in this order:
1.) Best quality HD video & TV on 52” LCD
2.) Silent
3.) Power consumption
4.) Nice front-end

why are people buying these overkill cpus for htpc's

id go for low power usage over cpu power anyday

my old 3800+x2 played 1080p flawlessly, and a passive 8500gt handles bluray and hddvd

my new htpc will be (new as in my server broke and had to put my htpc hardware in it:
2.3ghz amd dualcore (45tdp "BE" model)
2GB mem
8500gt
250GB hdd just for random stuff and OS (server has 2TB storage)
terratec diversity dvb-t dualtuner

this one will handle 1080p just fine (ive watched plenty with the slower 3800+ x2)
and total cost is like
cpu 90eur
mem 70eur
gpu 100eur
motherboard 50eur
dvb tuner 100eur

total 410eur, add a case of your choice (im using an antec nsk2400) and a remote (im using mce receiver with harmony525)

Hi Deebo,

I’m 100% with you on this one. Running HTPC as much as I do also means higher electrical cost, more noise and more heat.

By all means, I’d like to avoid that, but at the same time to have optimum configuration.

I’ll make my HTPC work hard, so I’ll need all that horse power. I’ll use it for:

Mediaportal on 5 TV’s (3x 24” LCD, 1x 40” Plasma, 1x 52” LCD TV – same picture on all)
Light control
24/7 video security
Multi-room sound
Videophone

When “body” costs 8k, it makes sense to spend 2k for “heart”

I’ll be very grateful for any advice on how to make my HTPC as optimal as possible!

why are people buying these overkill cpus for htpc's

id go for low power usage over cpu power anyday

my old 3800+x2 played 1080p flawlessly, and a passive 8500gt handles bluray and hddvd

my new htpc will be (new as in my server broke and had to put my htpc hardware in it:
2.3ghz amd dualcore (45tdp "BE" model)
2GB mem
8500gt
250GB hdd just for random stuff and OS (server has 2TB storage)
terratec diversity dvb-t dualtuner

this one will handle 1080p just fine (ive watched plenty with the slower 3800+ x2)
and total cost is like
cpu 90eur
mem 70eur
gpu 100eur
motherboard 50eur
dvb tuner 100eur

total 410eur, add a case of your choice (im using an antec nsk2400) and a remote (im using mce receiver with harmony525)

Hi Deebo,

I’m 100% with you on this one. Running HTPC as much as I do also means higher electrical cost, more noise and more heat.

By all means, I’d like to avoid that, but at the same time to have optimum configuration.

I’ll make my HTPC work hard, so I’ll need all that horse power. I’ll use it for:

Mediaportal on 5 TV’s (3x 24” LCD, 1x 40” Plasma, 1x 52” LCD TV – same picture on all)
Light control
24/7 video security
Multi-room sound
Videophone

When “body” costs 8k, it makes sense to spend 2k for “heart”

I’ll be very grateful for any advice on how to make my HTPC as optimal as possible!

 

[joystick]

GPU: I don’t mind if my CPU runs on 20% when I’m watching HD content. Adding additional card would mean even more power consumption, so I’ll try to avoid that. But anyway, thanks for good suggestion!

I think you got me wrong:
This is no ADDITIONAL card, it is a replacement for your Nvidia 8600!! I think it runs on 60 W and is definately the GPU of choice for HD content acceleration (and DX10) at the moment. Advantage also is: Very fast channel changing times.

Case: Take a look at Zalman cases (e.g. 160, also of you prefere touchscreen ) because they are really good from a quality point of view

Mabye you want to look at the "smaller" Zalman 160 case, there is also one without touchdisplay, the advantage is a very good decoupling for the hard disk etc. Costs around 220€.

Have fun with your project....

cheers

joystick

 

[stylistic]

In this case I’ll definitively go with ATI HD 2600 Pro! 8600 takes much more power, especially Gigabyte’s – it works on 100 degrees.

Benchmarks for HD 2600 Pro look perfect, so I’ll go with it 100%. I’ll take passively cooled GIGABYTE ATI RADEON HD 2600 PRO 512MB

Thanks for pointing this out joystick!

 

[dekkers]

Well,

If you need a slick case and has the money for it, maybe Mcubed HifiATX is something for you
http://www.hifiatx.com/hfx.php?lang=EN

greetz

 

[stylistic]

Well,

If you need a slick case and has the money for it, maybe Mcubed HifiATX is something for you
http://www.hifiatx.com/hfx.php?lang=EN

greetz

Dekkers, I'm almost 100% going for this one!!!

HFX Classic looks exactly what I was hopping, thanks for sharing!

Price for basic case is around 350€, but when you get all additionally needed component for passive cooling, it gets quite high… somewhere around 700€

I’ll still have to look into what lifetime is expected to get from components in such environment (quite hot), and if there’s no major difference, I’ll go for it.

 

[Telstar]

In this case I’ll definitively go with ATI HD 2600 Pro!

This is not true.

Nvidia drivers are generally better. I would go with an ati 2600 only if running XP.

Processor: INTEL Core 2 DUO E6750 2.66GHz 4MB LGA775
I suggest you a Q6600 instead.

5.1 sound card: Bluegears b-Enspirer
What's this? never heard of.

HDD: 2x Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB
Consider also the WD GreenPower if you need more space (like me)

Motherboard: not decided! Any Suggestions?
A reliable P35 board. Intel or asus are my fav makers.

Power Supply (passive): not decided! Any Suggestions?
Dont go passive for the psu. Get a quiet one.

Remote control: iMON 2.4G DT… Any Suggestions? I’m looking for remote with soft buttons, and scrolling wheel (like IPOD), but looks like there’s no such thing on RC market…
I plan on running VISTA Ultimate. Reason for this is, I’m waiting for NVIDIA to release XP drivers for HD video decoding H.264 (difference in CPU usage is enormous comparing XP (80%) and Vista (20%)). Until then, I’ll try running VISTA. Are there any other outstanding issues running MP on Vista?

No issues in running MP on vista. I have it on two test machines (x32 and x64, no issues, except for multiplayer plugin)