Building a HTPC

Alientank

Alientank

New member
I'm completely new to this however have been told building in a microATX is the way to go. I'm not hard up for cash and it's not an issue really, however there were a few guidelines I've figured out.

1) Get onboard video that is capable of properly playing/encoding/decoding.

2) You don't need lightning fast memory and 4 GB is overkill.

3) You're best getting an SSD for the primary drive to meet OS requirements and using a 2 TB for the media content.

4) You don't need a crazy fast CPU either like the memory.

5) A small 500 Watt PSU will do.

6) Get onboard audio as well.

Essentially I'm looking for any recommendations people have for builds or any build guides they used. I'm looking to put 3-4 2 TB HDD's in it along with a SSD for the primary.
 
AMD APU platform. 500W PSU is way overkill, 300-350W is about the max you'll ever want... you might even just go with a 200W power brick style with ATX convertor (runs around $50USD, high efficiency).

I would aim for an A6 APU and DDR3-1600 (so cheap its not worth bothering with 1333).

This gives you high quality video and audio over HDMI and low power use. You can pick the form factor, mATX or ATX, but for living room use mATX HTPC cases tend to be more popular. Using an APU gives you lots of GPU without the need for a card, so you can get the nice slim cases too.

For AMD socket FM1 mainboards, get one that has the A75 chipset so you get the SATA-3 and USB 3 ports.
 
Hey caveman, thanks for the advice. This is what I've built let me know what you think.

OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W ATX 20/24PIN SLI Ready Modular Cables 135mm Fan Active PFC Power Supply ($60) (May have to get a non mATX case if I can't find a good mATX PSU, or do ATX PSU's fit in mATX cases?)

Gigabyte A75M-S2V mATX AMD FM1 A75 2PCI-E16 1PCI-E1 1PCI DDR3 DVI SATA3 USB 3.0 Mothe *IR-$23* $76 (23 bucks off)

AMD A8-3870 Black APU Quad Core Processor W/ Radeon 6550D HD GFX Socket FM1 3.0GHZ 4MB Retail Box $152 (only 25 bucks more than the A6, said f it)

Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 Dual Channel Memory Kit (only 10 bucks more than 4GB, said F it)

Do you have any case recommendations? I want to be able to throw a SSD for the OS install and then the other 2-3 drives as regular SATA's.

Any other parts I need besides a case and the drives? I have an HDMI cable already. The other issue is moving all the movies and crap I have on this PC to the hard drives over there. Same goes for downloading future titles on my desktop and having to get them into the other room on the HTPC. Is there any way you do this easily?
 
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Solid hardware choices. ATX PSU's fit in most mATX cases, usually they state if they don't but you'll need to watch length - ATX is pretty flexible on length, for example my Tuniq Potency 500W fits in my mATX case but CoolerMaster 650W doesn't, it's too long.

For OS drive, a 60GB SATA-3 SSD will be sufficient. All you're gonna have on it OS, Media players, couple of codecs, download apps.

For storage drives I like the Seagate Barracuda LP, I have 3 of these 2TB drives. For moving movies, fastest way is to hook up the drives to your existing PC and copy them over, or do it via a fileshare on the network (good idea if you've got gigabit ethernet, not a good idea if you're on wifi).

Look at the tutorials on windows 7 homegroups, setting one up and joining, it's easy but makes things simpler for movie sharing and remote media player control.

the only other thing I can think of is a BD-ROM, you can get a combo BluRay player/DVD RW for about $50USD these day. I like these for optical drives as they have large cache and low latency compared to DVD. But thats only if you have BR's to play.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. any case suggestions? Something that holds 3 internal 3.5" and the SSD, and runs with quiet 120mm's that is still decently slim. This is the build so far.

Gigabyte A75M-S2V mATX AMD FM1 A75 2PCI-E16 1PCI-E1 1PCI DDR3 DVI SATA3 USB 3.0 Mothe *IR-$23*

AMD A8-3870 Black APU Quad Core Processor W/ Radeon 6550D HD GFX Socket FM1 3.0GHZ 4MB Retail Box

Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 Dual Channel Memory Kit

OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W ATX 20/24PIN SLI Ready Modular Cables 135mm Fan Active PFC Power Supply

LG CH12LS28 12X Blu-Ray Reader & Lightscribe DVD Writer Combo Drive

Corsair Force Series GT 60GB SSD SATA3 Solid State Disk 555MB/S Read Sandforce SF-2200

Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB SATA 6GB/S 3.5IN 12MS 5900RPM 64MB Hard Drive OEM

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64BIT SP1 DVD OEM
 
Cases - cheap look at HEC, nMedia. Expensive look at Silverstone, Antec, LianLi.

There's a bunch to choose from, take a look at pics and see how you like em. I never spend the extra on the silverstone/antec cases, they always look cool but the hec and nmedia stuff work ok.

check out the htpc section of newegg cases, they have lots to look at.
 
Went with this.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163166

Added to the rest of the build, is there anything missing you think? Or am I all good?

I'm going to replace my router with one that supports gigabit and run a hardline out to the HTPC so I can easily Xfer movies. Seems the easiest way.

Edit: Nub question, but will cat 5e cable support gigabit transfer speeds? Or do I need to go to 6?
 
Good case.

Cat5e will be fine for gigabit speeds, it's what I used in my old house. The only reason I'm going Cat6 in the new house is to have 10GbE upgrade capabilities later on.
 
caveman-jim said:
Cat5e will be fine for gigabit speeds, it's what I used in my old house. The only reason I'm going Cat6 in the new house is to have 10GbE upgrade capabilities later on.
Click to expand...

I just met with the low voltage wiring rep today about our new house. I had hoped they would allow me to pay for conduit to be used for all the ethernet runs, but that wasn't an option. :(

I paid the extra $200 for Cat6 for the same reason you did. :up:
 
Clear Video just enables GPU-accelerated post processing right? So it decreases CPU load but you can certainly still use CPU-only processing, no?

As for Quick SYnc transcoding, I don't see why you'd need it for regular HTPC usage (that is, watching content locally and natively - even if content is being streamed TO the HTPC, the source should be doing the transcoding).
 
Sure but you get better quality image out of dGPU's, and AMD's HQV rating* is higher than NV's.

For transcoding it depends on your setup, like you say the source ought to be transcoding but somepople have their HTPC as a MCE too, for xbox/ps3 etc.
 
That's true, there's some content that won't work with my consoles that I just won't let my fileserver transcode.

Damn you CJ, I was really looking to build an ITX system inside my old shuttle box (not too many good FM1 ITX boards around). :lol:
 
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