My HTPC Build

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boby55

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#30406 7-Feb-2009 07:38

Ok So after months of browsing the forums, Ive decided to build a htpc of my own.'

Im am looking at getting the following Hardware:

Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2
AMD Athlon X2 5200
4Gb DD2 800 Dual Channel Kit
1tb Hdd SATA II
nVidia 9600gt 512mb
HVR 2200 or 4000 Im undecided atm

Im still uncertin on what case to get

I have been looking at the
Silverstone SST-LC17 ATX Home Theatre Case, Black

but no shops seem to have any in stock only silver.

Any sugestions on what case to change to?

Also do I really need a 9600 Ive seen people around with only 8400s do they run just as fine?

Nety

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#194597 7-Feb-2009 10:52

For the video card it depends what you want to do. If you are going to only use your media centre as a media centre then the 8400GS or 9400GT is fine however if you think you might want to also use it for gaming then you will need something more like what you have listed.

IMHO it is best to not try and make a media centre that will play games. The two things are at odd's. Gaming rig you want fast components. Media centre you do not need speed but you do want quiet. Fast hardware is hot, hot needs lots of cooling = noise.

I would also say go for the 3000 rather then the 4000. We do not have and will not be getting DVB-S2 in the foreseeable future.

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

boby55

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#194599 7-Feb-2009 11:07

Nety: For the video card it depends what you want to do. If you are going to only use your media centre as a media centre then the 8400GS or 9400GT is fine however if you think you might want to also use it for gaming then you will need something more like what you have listed.

IMHO it is best to not try and make a media centre that will play games. The two things are at odd's. Gaming rig you want fast components. Media centre you do not need speed but you do want quiet. Fast hardware is hot, hot needs lots of cooling = noise.

I would also say go for the 3000 rather then the 4000. We do not have and will not be getting DVB-S2 in the foreseeable future.

I have no plan on ever playing games on the htpc, that is what my desktop is for.

is there much difference between a 8400 at $80 and a 9400 at $140 other than price?

Nety

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#194600 7-Feb-2009 11:17

Performance wise a little. There is another GZ'er that has a 8400 and says it plays HD fine. I got the 8500 just to have a little bit of a buffer and because at the time I did not know anyone that had a 8400 so was not sure if it would be enough. When the 8400 was first released it was only released to OEM's as a base level HD card but was then released to the general public.

The 9400GT is effectively the same speed as the 8500GT which has now been retired.

Bottom line is that either will work. I am guessing that the only difference would be that the 8400 might be running at say 95% utilisation when playing blu ray or freeview HD where the 9400 would be running at say 75%.

If you hunt around you can get the 9400 for around $100.

boby55

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#194602 7-Feb-2009 11:30

Nety: Performance wise a little. There is another GZ'er that has a 8400 and says it plays HD fine. I got the 8500 just to have a little bit of a buffer and because at the time I did not know anyone that had a 8400 so was not sure if it would be enough. When the 8400 was first released it was only released to OEM's as a base level HD card but was then released to the general public.

The 9400GT is effectively the same speed as the 8500GT which has now been retired.

Bottom line is that either will work. I am guessing that the only difference would be that the 8400 might be running at say 95% utilisation when playing blu ray or freeview HD where the 9400 would be running at say 75%.

If you hunt around you can get the 9400 for around $100.

yeah, that price was from ascent who are pretty pricey.

Last thing, I see a few people have HVR2200's any big differnce between them and 3000's all I want to do is watch Freeview HD and watch Prime on normal anologe without having to muck around with cables.

Dingbatt

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#194606 7-Feb-2009 11:42

boby55:
yeah, that price was from ascent who are pretty pricey.

Last thing, I see a few people have HVR2200's any big differnce between them and 3000's all I want to do is watch Freeview HD and watch Prime on normal anologe without having to muck around with cables.

The 2200 has hardware encoding for the analogue signal, the 3000 uses software. Depending on which media centre software you intend to use, the 3000 may not be able to do analogue for you.

I have both cards but only use the dvb-t and dvb-s (epg download) portions. The other advantage of the 2200 is that due to dual tuners you can record (at least with mediaportal) everything on 2 dvb-t muxes, i.e. all the programs on TVNZ and mediaworks. Not that I'm suggesting there is that much to watch.

My experience so far has been that the 3000 is more stable, the 2200 has sometimes been a little flakey.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

boby55

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#194612 7-Feb-2009 12:07

I plan on running media portal as thats what alot of people seem to be running and its free :)

So you say a 3000?

Nety

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#194639 7-Feb-2009 13:43

OK from experiance do not get the 3000 for analogue. It can do it but only at a big stretch. If fair hammers the CPU and the picture looks horrible.

The 2200 is much better in that regard. Also keep in mind that the 3000 is a hybrid. That means it can do DVB-T, DVB-S and analogue but only one at any one time. The 2200 has two tuners so you can set one up to do DVB-T and one to do analogue. It can do both of them at the same time.

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boby55

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#194647 7-Feb-2009 14:29

Thanks guys,

I think I will get a 2200 with a nvidia 9400