HTPC build - motherboard and CPU combo

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mattyb

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

Topic # 89146 26-Aug-2011 10:17
Hi All, Just looking for some comments on my motherboard and CPU combo for a new HTPC build I'm working on. Has anyone had any experience with the following: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128440 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103871 I have an opportunity to visit the US soon so hoping to take advantage of good prices from NewEgg. Cheers

dale77

275 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 512919 27-Aug-2011 17:48
The X4 840 gets my recommendation over the 640 at 95W. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103921 HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, GA-MA78GPM-UD2H F7, X2 4850e, Sapphire 4670 1GB, Corsair 2x1Gb, WD10EARS Green, LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray, Hauppauge NOVA TD-500, Logitech z-5500, Logitech Harmony 525, Samsung LA40B530 1080p, Vista Premium-32 SP2, Catalyst 10.12(Facelift preview), Mediaportal 1.2.2+OneButtonMusic, AC3Filter, Powercinema 6, WinDVD 11 Pro

kiwijunglist

1858 posts

Uber Geek

Reply # 512924 27-Aug-2011 17:53
Consider also the Intel G840 HTPC - Intel i3-2100 / 12GB / 13TB Storage / HD4670 / HVR2200 / Win 7 x64 + MediaPortal 1.3 Final PC - Intel e8600 / 8GB / HD5830 / Win7 x64

mattyb

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 513478 29-Aug-2011 14:24
Have added a few more goodies to the mix now. Comments please!! Qty.Product DescriptionSavingsTotal Price1 OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Item #:N82E16820227550 Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy $159.99 $97.991 GIGABYTE GA-880GM-USB3 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard Item #:N82E16813128440 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy $94.99 $89.991 G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Item #:N82E16820231193 Return Policy: Memory Standard Return Policy $32.991 Antec New Solution NSK2480 Black/Silver Computer Case Item #:N82E16811129034 Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy $117.991 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 32-bit Item #:N82E16832116983 Return Policy: Software Standard Return Policy $99.99 $91.981 AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Item #:N82E16819103921 Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy $104.99Grand Total:$535.93

dale77

275 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 513592 29-Aug-2011 18:24
I have the Antec Fusion which is based off the nsk2480 design. It is a nice case. The fusion has a volume knob (unnecessary) and an LED display (unnecessary) and a IR receiver (nice to have). If I was buying again I would go for a case without the display/volume... Also, can you find a case with a front USB3? The Fusion case, and probably the nsk2480 is not overgenerous height wise. I was unable to put a passive graphic card in there because the heatsink was too tall for the case to be shut... SSD is overkill for an HTPC, I get by with a single slow WD green. Building again I would go with a faster mechanical drive for the OS and a big secondary green. Check that the 4250 graphics on-board allows HD-audio passthrough if you want to interface witha receiver, assuming you aren't putting a graphics card in this. HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, GA-MA78GPM-UD2H F7, X2 4850e, Sapphire 4670 1GB, Corsair 2x1Gb, WD10EARS Green, LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray, Hauppauge NOVA TD-500, Logitech z-5500, Logitech Harmony 525, Samsung LA40B530 1080p, Vista Premium-32 SP2, Catalyst 10.12(Facelift preview), Mediaportal 1.2.2+OneButtonMusic, AC3Filter, Powercinema 6, WinDVD 11 Pro

dale77

275 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 513692 29-Aug-2011 21:47
dale77: Check that the 4250 graphics on-board allows HD-audio passthrough if you want to interface with a receiver, assuming you aren't putting a graphics card in this. According to renethx at AVSForum, the 4250 supports only stereo, DD and DTS bitstreaming over HDMI. If HD-Audio is in your future you will need another solution. You can of course just use your analog outs from the 8 channel on-board audio, this works for me well enough. HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, GA-MA78GPM-UD2H F7, X2 4850e, Sapphire 4670 1GB, Corsair 2x1Gb, WD10EARS Green, LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray, Hauppauge NOVA TD-500, Logitech z-5500, Logitech Harmony 525, Samsung LA40B530 1080p, Vista Premium-32 SP2, Catalyst 10.12(Facelift preview), Mediaportal 1.2.2+OneButtonMusic, AC3Filter, Powercinema 6, WinDVD 11 Pro

mattyb

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 515000 1-Sep-2011 12:12
You're right about the HD Audio. I'm now looking at this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131631R Do you know if this supports HD Audio?

elkano

155 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 515117 1-Sep-2011 15:14
SSD is overkill for an HTPC, I get by with a single slow WD green. Building again I would go with a faster mechanical drive for the OS and a big secondary green. I think it depends on the usage of the HTPC. I shut down my PC overnight (unless I'm recording) and turn it on when I get home in the evening and the 60GB SSD I use is much better in terms of startup time. If you're leaving the HTPC on then theres no point to a SSD. Also, once you've started your frontend there is also not much point as it behaves about the same as a mechanical drive. I completely agree about a faster mechanical drive though. I have a 7200rpm 500GB drive I use for storing recorded TV (I hear some people have had issues recording multiple channels while on a 5400rpm green drive). For storing movies and music though a faster drive is generally unnecessary and just generates more heat.

blur

333 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 515266 1-Sep-2011 19:01
elkano: SSD is overkill for an HTPC, I get by with a single slow WD green. Building again I would go with a faster mechanical drive for the OS and a big secondary green. I think it depends on the usage of the HTPC. I shut down my PC overnight (unless I'm recording) and turn it on when I get home in the evening and the 60GB SSD I use is much better in terms of startup time. If you're leaving the HTPC on then theres no point to a SSD. Also, once you've started your frontend there is also not much point as it behaves about the same as a mechanical drive. I completely agree about a faster mechanical drive though. I have a 7200rpm 500GB drive I use for storing recorded TV (I hear some people have had issues recording multiple channels while on a 5400rpm green drive). For storing movies and music though a faster drive is generally unnecessary and just generates more heat. I also disagree that a SSD drive is over-kill for a HTPC. I've just installed a 120GB SSD for the OS, applications (MediaPortal) and database. I find that overall the whole system is snappier (including start-up and shut down), even inside MediaPortal where it is drawing on the DB and thumbnails in say My TV Series, My Music with fanart etc. I made the mistake with a Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB drive when the were first released. I had a terrible time with stuttering video (standard definition) and have been put off "green" drives ever since. My HTPC - Case Antec Fusion Remote, MOBO Intel DH67BLB3, CPU Intel Core i5-2400S 2.5 GHz, RAM 8GB DDR3 1333, HDD 120Gig Corsair Force Series 3 SSD system \| WD Caviar Black 2TB data, Tuners Black Gold BGT3595 dual DVB-S/S2, dual DVB-T, Video nVIDIA GeForce GT 520, 1024MB, Sound Intel® High Definition Audio (onboard), OS Windows 7 x64

dale77

275 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 515376 1-Sep-2011 21:41
mattyb: You're right about the HD Audio. I'm now looking at this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131631R Do you know if this supports HD Audio? Both your original board and that one support HD Audio output via the ALC889 or ALC892 sound hardware. If you are happy decoding the HD audio in the HTPC and sending it out over 8 channel analog you are fine, although you need blu-ray software to decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-Master Audio. If you want to send the digital HD-audio unmolested to a receiver to do the decoding (common in the HTPC world, but do YOU want to do it?) you need an HDMI port that can do that. In the AMD past, only the HDMI on discrete cards could do that. So you need to add a discrete 5xxx level card to a motherboard with HD 4290 graphics to achieve HD-audio over hdmi. Or... You could look at the new llano A series AMD chips and an FM1 mobo. These cpus have on-chip 6xxx level graphics capable of supporting bitstreaming. HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, GA-MA78GPM-UD2H F7, X2 4850e, Sapphire 4670 1GB, Corsair 2x1Gb, WD10EARS Green, LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray, Hauppauge NOVA TD-500, Logitech z-5500, Logitech Harmony 525, Samsung LA40B530 1080p, Vista Premium-32 SP2, Catalyst 10.12(Facelift preview), Mediaportal 1.2.2+OneButtonMusic, AC3Filter, Powercinema 6, WinDVD 11 Pro

dale77

275 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 515385 1-Sep-2011 21:52
Dale77: SSD is overkill for an HTPC, I get by with a single slow WD green. Building again I would go with a faster mechanical drive for the OS and a big secondary green. elkano: I think it depends on the usage of the HTPC. I shut down my PC overnight (unless I'm recording) and turn it on when I get home in the evening and the 60GB SSD I use is much better in terms of startup time. blur: I also disagree that a SSD drive is over-kill for a HTPC. I've just installed a 120GB SSD for the OS, applications (MediaPortal) and database. I find that overall the whole system is snappier (including start-up and shut down), even inside MediaPortal where it is drawing on the DB and thumbnails in say My TV Series, My Music with fanart etc. Well yeah, agreed - SSD is much better performance wise. But SSDs have that cost factor. I guess if you are only paying an extra $100 for a 60Gb SSD os drive. It gets harder to justify for $300+ for a 120Gb I run a WD Green 1Tb (and yes this is my third one, the other two were broken) and do not notice performance issues on the HTPC. HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, GA-MA78GPM-UD2H F7, X2 4850e, Sapphire 4670 1GB, Corsair 2x1Gb, WD10EARS Green, LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray, Hauppauge NOVA TD-500, Logitech z-5500, Logitech Harmony 525, Samsung LA40B530 1080p, Vista Premium-32 SP2, Catalyst 10.12(Facelift preview), Mediaportal 1.2.2+OneButtonMusic, AC3Filter, Powercinema 6, WinDVD 11 Pro

rhysee

13 posts

Geek

Reply # 517396 6-Sep-2011 11:23
My new HTPC rig .. Using Windows 7 MC , which works a treat , Thoughts anyone ? Antec Fusion Remote Black HTPC Enclosure (No Powersupply) Dispatched 3/6/2011$349.00 1 $349.00 CL Extreme Asus P8H67-I Deluxe + 2500 + Corsair Combo Dispatched 3/6/2011$599.00 1 $599.00 Seasonic X-Series Fanless 400W PSU 80PLUS Gold Dispatched 3/6/2011$199.00 1 $199.00 Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB WD20EARS 64MB Cache SATAII Dispatched 3/6/2011$129.00 1 $129.00 Total:$1,276.00 Hauppauge WinTV HVR900HD Digital/Analog Hybird USB TV Tuner Dispatched 17/6/2011$125.00 1 $125.00

reven

1186 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Reply # 517401 6-Sep-2011 11:29
rhysee: My new HTPC rig .. Using Windows 7 MC , which works a treat , Thoughts anyone ? Antec Fusion Remote Black HTPC Enclosure (No Powersupply) Dispatched 3/6/2011$349.00 1 $349.00 CL Extreme Asus P8H67-I Deluxe + 2500 + Corsair Combo Dispatched 3/6/2011$599.00 1 $599.00 Seasonic X-Series Fanless 400W PSU 80PLUS Gold Dispatched 3/6/2011$199.00 1 $199.00 Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB WD20EARS 64MB Cache SATAII Dispatched 3/6/2011$129.00 1 $129.00 Total:$1,276.00 Hauppauge WinTV HVR900HD Digital/Analog Hybird USB TV Tuner Dispatched 17/6/2011$125.00 1 $125.00 personally i would go for a mac mini and a hdhomerun, around same cost, mac mini is small, quiet, great machine. also you can sell them off and get a good price second hand in a few years if you decide to upgrade again (they seem to only lose around 30% of their cost) or a Dell Zino HD as mentioned by freitasm here (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=84&topicid=89592) i have a old HTPC in a large HTPC case just lying on my office floor that i doubt ill get more than $200 for, whereas a old mac mini around same specs i should get around $650 for on trademe. www.reven.co.nz

smac

231 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 518373 8-Sep-2011 08:23
kiwijunglist: Consider also the Intel G840 Have just put my HTPC back together using this cpu (changed from E5300 on a board with nvidia 9300 igpu) - am getting some pixelation when using the Win7 30 second skip. Will trying overclocking it to see if helps at all....not happy though.