Comments on my HTPC build

I've been an HTPC hobbyist for long enough now that I think it's time to build a dedicated HTPC and let my poor, tired desktop take a break. I primarily play downloaded TV shows and movies in DivX format, with the occasional 720p or 1080p TV ep or movie. It works fine on regular files, but it sometimes turn into a slideshow when I am trying to watch a 1080p movie. My current setup is:

Opteron 170 @ 2.4ghz
2gb RAM at DDR400 (2-2-2-5 timings I think)
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
eVGA 7900GTX
Soundblaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
Happauge PVR-150 and PVR-500

What I was looking at is:
AMD 2.2 or 2.4ghz quad core (depending on the price at the time I buy)
4gb RAM
Asus M2N-E
Palit 8800GT 1gb
Silverstone Lascala LC17B
OCZ GameXtream 750w PSU

I am going to be swapping the hard drives from my current system to put into the new one. It will be getting a 1tb and 2 750gb drives. I'll be adding another smaller drive as the system drive, and maybe another 1tb as well. The TV cards will also be going into the new system.

Does this sound like a good setup? I need it to have solid playback of 1080p h.264 and x.264 files. I rely heavily on this thing for every day use, so it needs to be a workhorse.

Will I be fine with onboard sound? Or should I maybe spend $100 on a decent soundcard... something that can output 5.1 to my receiver.

Now you're saying you want your desktop to take a break but that you also want this machine to be a "workhorse" for everyday stuff. So which is it? Your potential specs make it sound more like a regular PC with a couple of TV tuners in it (though even for that your power supply is overkill).

For a "dedicated" HTPC: Get a 780G motherboard and use both onboard video and audio. The video will handle 1080p fine, especially paired with a quad core as you intend. Make sure you get a board with onboard audio that support Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect, that way you'll be able to get 5.1 audio for all sources, not just pre-encoded ones (such as DVDs).

There's really no need for an 8800GT in a dedicated HTPC setup. You may want to consider new tuner cards, Hauppauge's HVR-1600 or 1800 could be worthwhile.

Also, lose that power supply. A Silverstone S12II-380 will be more than enough, even with a Phenom in there.

Now if you're just talking about building a new system and using it as an HTPC, gaming box, everything, there's a few changes.

First, what's your output? If you're using, say, a 720p television and running games at 1360x768 or thereabouts, you definitely don't need an 8800GT. You could probably get away with a Radeon HD 3650 or whatever else is closer to the low end of the spectrum when you buy. If you're in 1080p then a faster card could be useful, but know that you'll only see that while gaming. The 780G's onboard video is more than enough to handle playback of 1080p video, even blu-ray.

So, if gaming, video card should be a consideration. If not, use onboard.

Second, why the large power supply? Even in a gaming system you won't need something that powerful. Maybe if you're planning on SLI, but SLI and HTPC do not belong in the same system.

Lastly, no matter what, I don't think you need a dedicated sound card. Just make sure you've got a digital output so your receiver's DACs can handle the decoding and thus you bypass any noise issues with the onboard implementation.

Thanks for the good reply. By every day stuff, I mean that this thing is almost always in use. I'm often watching something on the screen and recording more than one TV show at once. I also have my system automatically compressing all my recorded shows from dvr-ms format to mpeg4.

The main problem right now with my current system is that it seems to have trouble keeping up with everything. The video can sometimes be glitchy with TV shows, and 1080p video will often look like a slide show. Therefore I'd like to build to ensure it will last and that I will have lots of power. I'm trying to keep a balance of keeping it affordable, while at the same time, having more than enough power at my disposal.

Do you have any recommendations on boards that have the features that you mentioned?

Any reason why I might want to look at new tuners?

The output is 1080p. I am using a DVI-HDMI cable right now.

The power supply I agree might be a bit overkill, but more than likely I will eventually be running 6 hard drives in the box, so I'd like to have as much overhead as possible. It's affordable enough that I think it would be worthwhile just going for it.

I didn't think I needed dedicated sound either

I still don't think you need that big of an PS.

In my desktop, I had 7 HD's running with a lot more stuff on a 550watt PS.

Yeah, even with that many hard drives you could go under 500W for the PSU and be fine. Even the 380W unit I recommended would be good.

Here, take a look at this:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14654/9

Their test system, configured with a Core 2 Extreme at 2.93GHz (dual core), a 320GB hard drive and an X38 motherboard, paired with a GeForce 9800GTX, doesn't even pull 260W under load. Removing the video card from the picture entirely you could add half a dozen hard drives and still not approach the power consumption of a 9800GTX.

I understand the desire to have a lot of overhead, but for an HTPC, more efficient and lower power is better than bigger and more power.

The first board that comes to mind is the Asus M3A-H (obligatory newegg link), full ATX 780G board. ECS also has a nice full ATX one although theirs does not have a digital audio output. As far as the playback is concerned, an 8800GT can't accelerate video playback any more than the onboard graphics of the 780G could. As far as its capabilities are concerned, see here:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article807-page8.html

Onboard 780G graphics allow their system with the processor clocked only to 1.5GHz to play back all of their test video smoothly. Obviously a faster clocked quad core would be just fine (though really, for HTPC use, I'd suggest holding off on a Phenom until the 45nm variants are available, or until they have some lower-rated processors in terms of power draw, maybe 65W or so).

If you're concerned about future power, an 8800GT would still be pointless, as any newer hardware decode features they add would require a newer video card anyways.

The main reason I suggested the new tuner is because you could get a pair of dual tuners, many of which can now tune unencrypted QAM in addition to broadcast ATSC, to replace the two you currently have. However I don't think XP/Vista media center - which I assume you're using since you mention dvr-ms - supports QAM tuning (not sure about Vista but pretty sure XP still doesn't), so unless one of your tuners bites the dust then I can't think of a reason to upgrade.

Once again, thanks.

That looks like a really nice motherboard, just what I'm after. The sucky thing is that I'm in Canada and Newegg won't ship to me. I can always find a way around that I guess.

Is that coax output good enough to get all the signal I want? I am using a digital coax output on my X-Fi right now and I don't think it is sending 5.1.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no hardware decoding for x.264, correct? I watch a lot of x.264 videos, so if that's the case, what kind of power is needed to reliably play back a 1080p x.264 file?

And actually, I'm using MediaPortal as my front end. For some reason it's recording everything as dvr-ms. There might be a way I change that, but it's certainly annoying given the size of the files it saves.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no hardware decoding for x.264, correct? I watch a lot of x.264 videos, so if that's the case, what kind of power is needed to reliably play back a 1080p x.264 file?

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There is hardware decoding of H264/AVC files on both the Nvidia/ATI cards, its just that they have to be encoded using a specific level and certain restrictions, if your doing the encoding yourself then the latest Megui/Staxrip both have DXVA (Hardware Acceleration) profiles available for your encodes. If your not doing the encodes yourself then shame on you .

As for cpu power (when hardware acceleration is a no-no), it depends on the bitrate/options used on the encode, as an example the last 1080p at 10000Kbit encode i did uses between 35-55% of my stock e6600 (using CoreAVC as the player). If i use Acceleration it uses between 2-5%

deruberhanyok said:

Onboard 780G graphics allow their system with the processor clocked only to 1.5GHz to play back all of their test video smoothly. Obviously a faster clocked quad core would be just fine (though really, for HTPC use, I'd suggest holding off on a Phenom until the 45nm variants are available, or until they have some lower-rated processors in terms of power draw, maybe 65W or so).

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To be fair the Phenoms do Hypertransport 3 which gives the IGP more bandwidth to play; it allows them to do things like better deinterlacing (or any deinterlacing in some cases) of 1080i/p material.

WCES Ryan said:

Is that coax output good enough to get all the signal I want? I am using a digital coax output on my X-Fi right now and I don't think it is sending 5.1.

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Yes, it can send dolby digital and DTS 5.1 to your receiver. The thing with the X-Fi (assuming you're talking about one of the regular Creatve cards, not the Auzentech one) is that it doesn't have support for Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect, so you're limited to 5.1 audio only from pre-encoded sources (such as a DVD movie). Everything else will be sent in PCM stereo regardless of speaker settings.

If you're getting PCM stereo while watching something that you know should be in 5.1 (again, like a DVD) then check your sound settings and see if the card is set to use its built-in decoder or to pass the signal along to the receiver. If it is using its built-in decoder then it's trying to decode the 5.1 audio and send that along to the receiver, but since it is already decoded it would only be transmitting PCM stereo.