First HTPC Build - Please critique/advise

jls944

Member
I am looking to build my first HTPC. My objectives are the following:
- Needs to be quite
- Stream/play/record HD quality video
- Run 24/7

Here is the hardware I was thinking of using. My budget is <$800.

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 255 Socket AM3 75
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H board 85
Memory: CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 125
HDD: Western Digital GreenPower drive AV-GP WD15EVDS 120
Chassis: Antec Black M FusionRemote 350 Micro ATX 90
Operating System: Windows 7 x64 110
Blu-Ray: LG black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA 100
Graphics Card: Radeon HD 5570 1GB DDR3 85
Total Cost 790

Please let me know what you think of this setup and whether it will do everything I need without any issues and be 100% reliable. Also, do I actually need a graphics card or with the MOBO be sufficient? Please let me know if you think other hardware will work better.

Thanks in advance.
 
From a glance it all looks good. :(

To make a PC quiet: Get the dB ratings of all components that have fans. This will include chasis fans, power supply fans, cpu fans, and video card fans. "Quiet" is defined (to me) as close to (or lower than) 20dB as possible. You will most likely want an aftermarket CPU heatsink/fan combo. If the case is large enough, you may be able to passivly cool the CPU (with a very large pure copper heatsink). Passivly cooled CPUs have no fans, therefore generate no noise. Please note, quiet is not silent. The only way to have a silent PC (which would be awsome) is to have no mechanical parts to it - this means no fans and no traditional hard drives.

You will need a graphics card, absolutly. Onboard graphics are typically for very low-end dekstops (that can't gaurentee HD video to be smooth) or for server boards that don't need video acceleration. You may not need a video card as powerful as you have chosen. I havn't researched that card, but in general if you go back a generation or two from "current" technology you can find the older models that have been upgraded to use far less power and what would be really great in your case - passivly cooled.

I would also ask you to consider adding a small drive (possibly solid state) for your operating system and programs. It is a good idea to keep media seperated from the system. This helps keeping fragmentation down, as well as helps prevent the harddrive from thrashing (trying to seek from one end of the disk to the other rapidly) when streaming video & trying to read/write files for the OS. You would be able to get away with something a small as 36gb for this purpose.

For hard drives, again I havn't looked up the specs on the drive you listed, but you will need to ensure that it can handle sustained read/write at an absolute minimum 40MB/sec. An HD stream is roughly 20MB/sec, sometimes more. You will need to be able to record and playback a HD stream at the same time without causing excessive thrashing of the drive.

I also noticed you don't have any typical HTPC gear on there (IR reciever, tuners, etc.). Are you planning on adding these later? At a minimum, you'll need to have some method of remote control, otherwise you'll be getting up from the money seat on the couch all the time.

Hope this helps,
Kent
 
The 5x series card from ATI are a solid choice. It does 7.1 DTS and TrueHD over HDMI. Also ATI seems to handle scaling to a TV the better than the numerous builds I have done around Nvidia cards or onboard graphics (iON). Nvidia cards tend to put the desktop out of frame and the adjustments do not always yield the optimal result.

What programs are you leaning toward for your media management?
 
If you will be controlling a set top box make sure you get a media center compatible IR blaster. I made that mistake when I built mine. I bought a MC remote, but it didn't have a blaster to control my DirecTV box, so then I had to hunt one down.

Matt
 
So you would use ATI graphics card instead of the one I specified? I will look into those.

I'm thinking about using MediaPortal. What media management do you guys/gals use?

I have a RF universal remote that blasts to IR. I think this should work for all my components.
 
I was way into the htpc craze for a while, and it was fun. I used BeyondTV and like the interface. Recording and (especially) rendering HD video was always a hassle, but I believe you have a much more powerful rig than I was trying it on.

Heat and noise are going to be major issues, if this thing is going to sit in your living room. Here are my recommendations:

1) Visit silentpcreview.com. I lived there for months, learning how to make a standard PC quieter, and still cool enough to do the job. We now own main desktop PC's where you have to look at the light to see if it's on, instead of just hearing it. Having a quiet computer was a completely new way of thinking for me, I had just grown used to the noise of fans.

2) Consider going with an external HD renderer, such as the HD200 and SageTV. That will not only keep you from having to use a high-powered (and usually noisy) video card, but it would also mean you could store the PC box in a different room (and thus use cheaper/standard hard drives instead of solid state), and keep the fanless HD200 in the living room. And the remote would already work.

Anyway, that's about all I have left to offer on the subject. When we moved to PA, we moved out of OTA HD range, and thus I lost my interesting in running my own HTPC. I found it overall to be too much hassle to accomplish the desired result. Anything that is running on Windows will eventually cause you frustration.
 
Earlier the use of SSD for your HD was mentioned.

Personally I purchased a small Asus Netbook with a dual core Atom. It was a "Woot Special". When I purchased it; it arrived with a small SSD / Linux. I have since upgraded the memory and SSD. Using the upgraded memory I was able to create a "cache" ram drive which speed up the RW access of the computer. The only noise I hear from the Netbook is the cooling fan and its pretty quiet. Contrasting I have a 1TB 3.5 HD in my MediaTank. I do hear the drive boot up and running before I turn up the sound in my media room. One of the earlier issues was SSD's was exactly how many times could you RW to the drive? The prices for SSD's have come down considerably in the last couple of years along with their footprint.
 
The only thing I'd worry about (as others have nailed noise/heat) is the WD Green.. I hate that drive. It's such a pain in my a55.. I plan to retire the one I just bought as a devoted backup disk where it's lack of speed and functionality won't impede me further. :(

If you're going to use the drive to store low bit rate movies then you're fine but I'd swap that for something better even at the cost of capacity.
 
The only thing I'd worry about (as others have nailed noise/heat) is the WD Green.. I hate that drive. It's such a pain in my a55.. I plan to retire the one I just bought as a devoted backup disk where it's lack of speed and functionality won't impede me further. ;)

If you're going to use the drive to store low bit rate movies then you're fine but I'd swap that for something better even at the cost of capacity.

Any suggestions on an alternative HDD?
 
The card you have listed is a solid choice.

As for media management I have tried just about all of them. Right now I have settled on My Movies as it has a nice WHS version which can do the heavy lifting for clients to include trans-coding support for extenders.
 
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