HTPC Build Advice

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Kastang

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May 29, 2007
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I am working on pricing out a new HTPC system. The primary used for the HTPC will be to play BluRay and other HQ video stored on hard drives. I also would like to use this device to backup new DVDs and Blurays to internal storage. No gaming or other activities are planned for this device. In the future I am planning on setting up a TV Tuner for a HD DVR, but that won't be until after the new year.

I am currently using an older 46" 1080i Plasma TV but I plan on upgrading soon to a newer LCD and LED TV.

I currently have the following picked out:

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-880GMA-UD2H AM3 AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - C3 Revision HDZ555WFGMBOX

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL

Storage: Western Digital AV-GP WD10EVDS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal AV Hard Drive -Bare Drive (two of them)

PSU: Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 Modular Active PFC Power Supply

BluRay Player: LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Reader SATA Model iHOS104-06 - OEM

The total price before tax and shipping is: $552.

I chose AMD because my last two gaming builds have been AMD systems which I have been very happy with. I do not have an issue switching to an Intel based system if the price vs performance is worth it.

I am not sure if the onboard mother HDMI will be able to support 1080p playback. If it can, great, if not what would be a viable card? Again, no gaming or anything, just playback.

I am definitely high in regards to the PSU wattage, but I would like to leave room for expansion in the future.

Thanks very much for any suggestions
 
Instead of a Phenom II I would go with a Athlon X4. You're going to notice the extra cores when you're converting the blurays unless you don't plan on converting them to X264 which would eat up into you HD space. And if you don't plan on converting then an Athlon X2 would be better suited. You don't need the BE since you're not planning on OCing and you don't need the extra L3 cache so you're better off with a $50 X2 at only 65watt vs 80watt PII and you can undervolt it to get some passive cooling with a ninja/ninja mini.

The onboard card is perfectly capable of playing any 1080 HD stream with great image quality. As for something viable... I use a passively cooled 5450, which works fine, but I also like the HD audio bitstreaming features. The onboard 4250 will work just fine.

The PSU wattage is high. I think you're better off getting a 400 watt Corsair unit which is constantly on sale. The higher the wattage, the less efficient the PS becomes when handling lower wattage. Personally I'm a big proponent of efficiency and quality in PSU. I like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151074

You're system as is consumes a little over 200 watts of power and green drives barely add anything to it.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
 
EDIT: CrazyCuz2k beat me to it.

You didn't mention it, but which case are you going to use? My current build uses GD05B, which I recommend, though you'll be limited in aftermarket coolers due to your optical drive.
 
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I agree with changing the processor to something cheaper & more efficient unless transcoding BR rips, and then I assume you'll try to unlock to a Phenom II(?).

And if you are doing BR/HD rips, you will need to get a bigger/another hard drive in the near future.

EDIT: mrbrad already asked about case.
 
CrazyCuz2k said:
Instead of a Phenom II I would go with a Athlon X4. You're going to notice the extra cores when you're converting the blurays unless you don't plan on converting them to X264 which would eat up into you HD space. And if you don't plan on converting then an Athlon X2 would be better suited. You don't need the BE since you're not planning on OCing and you don't need the extra L3 cache so you're better off with a $50 X2 at only 65watt vs 80watt PII and you can undervolt it to get some passive cooling with a ninja/ninja mini.

The onboard card is perfectly capable of playing any 1080 HD stream with great image quality. As for something viable... I use a passively cooled 5450, which works fine, but I also like the HD audio bitstreaming features. The onboard 4250 will work just fine.

The PSU wattage is high. I think you're better off getting a 400 watt Corsair unit which is constantly on sale. The higher the wattage, the less efficient the PS becomes when handling lower wattage. Personally I'm a big proponent of efficiency and quality in PSU. I like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151074

You're system as is consumes a little over 200 watts of power and green drives barely add anything to it.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
Click to expand...

Thank you for the advice. I switched the PII BE to a Athlon II x4 630. I also switched to the PSU you suggested as it looks like it will provide adequate expansion.

Good to know the onboard card is capable of handling 1080P. This leaves me open to adding in a card in the future if needed.

mrbrad said:
EDIT: CrazyCuz2k beat me to it.

You didn't mention it, but which case are you going to use? My current build uses GD05B, which I recommend, though you'll be limited in aftermarket coolers due to your optical drive.
Click to expand...


I haven't put much thought in to a case yet. I do like the way that one looks. I added it to my Newegg cart. It definitely will go well with my other items on my TV. The case is a bit more then I was planning on spending on one, but as long as I keep this build below the $700 range I don't mind putting the extra money out for the case.

hiodie said:
And if you are doing BR/HD rips, you will need to get a bigger/another hard drive in the near future.
Click to expand...

I agree. I am still working out the details of storage. I am between shoving as many 1 or 2TB HDDs inside the unit I can in a Raid configuration that allows redundacy (Raid 0+1) or buying a large NAS (or external hard drive) shell and shoving the hard drives in there. I suppose either would work. I would imagine it would be more efficient to purchase a NAS/large external hard drive to store the data.
 
CrazyCuz2k said:
The PSU wattage is high. I think you're better off getting a 400 watt Corsair unit which is constantly on sale. The higher the wattage, the less efficient the PS becomes when handling lower wattage. Personally I'm a big proponent of efficiency and quality in PSU. I like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151074
Click to expand...

I don't recommend this PSU at all. Seems waay too costly, even for a high efficient PSU, considering that you can get a larger and still efficient PSU for the same price:
$70 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU

By going with a larger PSU, you're now closer to the optimal noise, temperature, and longevity range for a PSU.

Kastang said:
I agree. I am still working out the details of storage. I am between shoving as many 1 or 2TB HDDs inside the unit I can in a Raid configuration that allows redundacy (Raid 0+1) or buying a large NAS (or external hard drive) shell and shoving the hard drives in there. I suppose either would work. I would imagine it would be more efficient to purchase a NAS/large external hard drive to store the data.
Click to expand...

It's a general consensus to keep the storage and HTPC seperate.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1419906
 
Danny Bui said:
I don't recommend this PSU at all. Seems waay too costly, even for a high efficient PSU, considering that you can get a larger and still efficient PSU for the same price:
$70 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU

By going with a larger PSU, you're now closer to the optimal noise, temperature, and longevity range for a PSU.



It's a general consensus to keep the storage and HTPC seperate.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1419906
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information. Better to find these little details out sooner rather then later.

I am now thinking smaller high RPM drive for the operating system and piece together some machines laying around the house into a NAS box. It would be nice to have multiple computers able to interact with the box rather then only the HTPC.
 
Kastang said:
Thanks for the information. Better to find these little details out sooner rather then later.

I am now thinking smaller high RPM drive for the operating system and piece together some machines laying around the house into a NAS box. It would be nice to have multiple computers able to interact with the box rather then only the HTPC.
Click to expand...

Sounds good. Just make sure that you have a decent quality PSU for that NAS. It is holding a lot data and the last thing you want is for a low quality PSU to kill the NAS.
 
Kastang said:
Thanks for the information. Better to find these little details out sooner rather then later.

I am now thinking smaller high RPM drive for the operating system and piece together some machines laying around the house into a NAS box. It would be nice to have multiple computers able to interact with the box rather then only the HTPC.
Click to expand...

If its not going to be storing much and streaming soley from a NAS you may consider going with a slightly slower drive or a small SSD to reduce noise. If you are concerned about that anyways.
 
Make sure to get a video card, the onboard AMD IGP is stupid for HTPC usage due to being limited to 2.0 audio over HDMI.
 
Yeah unless you have a HD-Audio capable receiver the onboard optical will do fine. I upgraded to an Asus D1 just because I was using analog output and the analog section of the onboard card sucks compared to a dedicated soundcard. So depending on you audio setup you may want to get an ATI 5000 series card like I stated before. Since you're not going to be storing your media on your HTPC I'd reccomend getting a laptop HD for it. Uses less power and runs quiet. Personally I have a 30 GB SSD which is amazing as OS drive for one of my HTPC's. Cut my boot times and load times more than half, dead quiet and sucks barely any juice.
 
I decided I am going to do two builds, one HTPC and one Media Server/NAS to store all the digital media. Instead of reusing old parts I would like to build these two units from scratch together.

The Media Server/NAS will not only be used for the HTPC, but also a 360 and PS3 around the house. I would assume the power requirements shouldn't be too high for this.

I am thinking something like:

-2GB Ram
-motherboard with several PCI-e slots.
-hardware RAID cards
-low end Athlon II x2 CPU
-500W+ PSU

Some of my files will have to be transcoded from the Media Server to display on the XBox and 360. I am looking at a few server cases. I will probably start off with 4 1TB drives (Raid 1) and work my way up from there. I would like to leave room for expansion in terms of drives and PSU power. If the rough setup sounds acceptable, I will work on piecing together some parts in more detail.
 
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Danny Bui said:
I don't recommend this PSU at all. Seems waay too costly, even for a high efficient PSU, considering that you can get a larger and still efficient PSU for the same price:
$70 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU

By going with a larger PSU, you're now closer to the optimal noise, temperature, and longevity range for a PSU.
Click to expand...

Based on what? That sounds good, but whether or not it is true is yet to be seen.
 
Kastang said:
The Media Server/NAS will not only be used for the HTPC, but also a 360 and PS3 around the house. I would assume the power requirements shouldn't be too high for this.

I am thinking something like:

-2GB Ram
-motherboard with several PCI-e slots.
-hardware RAID cards
-low end Athlon II x2 CPU
-500W+ PSU

Some of my files will have to be transcoded from the Media Server to display on the XBox and 360. I am looking at a few server cases. I will probably start off with 4 1TB drives (Raid 1) and work my way up from there. I would like to leave room for expansion in terms of drives and PSU power. If the rough setup sounds acceptable, I will work on piecing together some parts in more detail.
Click to expand...

What OS were you planning to use for the server/NAS?
What's your budget for this NAS without hard drives?
 
Kastang said:
I decided I am going to do two builds, one HTPC and one Media Server/NAS to store all the digital media. Instead of reusing old parts I would like to build these two units from scratch together.

The Media Server/NAS will not only be used for the HTPC, but also a 360 and PS3 around the house. I would assume the power requirements shouldn't be too high for this.

I am thinking something like:

-2GB Ram
-motherboard with several PCI-e slots.
-hardware RAID cards
-low end Athlon II x2 CPU
-500W+ PSU

Some of my files will have to be transcoded from the Media Server to display on the XBox and 360. I am looking at a few server cases. I will probably start off with 4 1TB drives (Raid 1) and work my way up from there. I would like to leave room for expansion in terms of drives and PSU power. If the rough setup sounds acceptable, I will work on piecing together some parts in more detail.
Click to expand...


whoa, quite a jump in a day's time. but having a media server + htpc is well worth it.

agree with most of what is being said here. but i still have to disagree with using onboard video. it's rubbish.
 
Danny Bui said:
What OS were you planning to use for the server/NAS?
What's your budget for this NAS without hard drives?
Click to expand...


It looks like my two options are FreeNAS and Windows Home Server. If the box was just going to be for myself I would probably go the FreeNAS way, but since other family members will be using the box, I feel as if WHS would be the smarter way to go.

As for a budget, I really don't have one set. I would like to keep under maybe $400 if possible (without hard drives). If it helps, I can't imagine more then two people ever pulling from the server at the same time. 75%+ of the time it will be used by only one person at a time.
 
For $400, you're not gonna be able to find a true hardware RAID card for that price + the actual server.

For WHS or Fileserver without any true hardware RAID card, you can get the following:

Prelim File Server:
$102 - AMD Athlon II X2 245 CPU + Biostar TA785G3HD AMD 785G mATX Motherboard Combo
$43 - Patriot PSD32G13332 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$120 - Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB SATA HDD
$75 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU
$70 - Cooler Master RC-590-KKN1-GP ATX Case
----
Total: $410 plus tax and shipping
 
What is the average cost for a decent hardware raid card? Looking on newegg the prices range from $30 to $1000+

I see you added in a hard drive, I was planning on $400 before hard drives so in theory if there is a hardware raid solution for around $120 (or even up to $200) I will be able to get one.

EDIT: WHS doesn't use RAID does it? If I remember correctly WHS offers almost a software duplication raid service built into the OS. Would this be sufficient for a Media Server and WHS?

Danny Bui said:
For $400, you're not gonna be able to find a true hardware RAID card for that price + the actual server.

For WHS or Fileserver without any true hardware RAID card, you can get the following:

Prelim File Server:
$102 - AMD Athlon II X2 245 CPU + Biostar TA785G3HD AMD 785G mATX Motherboard Combo
$43 - Patriot PSD32G13332 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$120 - Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB SATA HDD
$75 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU
$70 - Cooler Master RC-590-KKN1-GP ATX Case
----
Total: $410 plus tax and shipping
Click to expand...
 
Kastang said:
What is the average cost for a decent hardware raid card? Looking on newegg the prices range from $30 to $1000+
Click to expand...

$430 for a new decent hardware RAID card. $200 for a used one but it may or may not work well. Yeah WHS does not use RAID. The setup I linked to was originally designed for WHS.
 
Danny Bui said:
$430 for a new decent hardware RAID card. $200 for a used one but it may or may not work well. Yeah WHS does not use RAID. The setup I linked to was originally designed for WHS.
Click to expand...

Thank you VERY much for your input. I am fairly sure I am going to go with WHS so I will base my NAS build off of your suggested items.
 
Kastang said:
Thank you VERY much for your input. I am fairly sure I am going to go with WHS so I will base my NAS build off of your suggested items.
Click to expand...

No prob. Though use a different 2TB drive. It has just come to my attention that the EARS drive I recommended may not be a good idea to use with WHS.
 
Question regarding WHS.

Is there any real reason I should worry about buying WHS for the Media Server portion of this build? I am thinking about using Windows 7 + Media Browser. For the "software raid" part I could use drive Mirroring built in to Windows 7.

Maybe I am missing something important regarding WHS, but if I am just going to use it for storing media, would the Windows 7 + Media Browser work just as well?
 
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