Here's my planned build, keen on your opinions....

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Here's my planned build, keen on your opinions....

bucklandj

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#55954 11-Jan-2010 13:19

Hi all, I'm a noob to this, but have had a lot of advice from the IT dept at work. I want to build an HTPC for HD Freeview mostly, but will also store all my music on it and will probably surf the net a bit. I have a 42 inch full HD LCD and may upgrade to blueray in the future.
My planned components are:

Antec NSK2480B (Black) box
ASUS M4A785-M AM3 ATI 785G DDR2 PCI-E motherboard
AMD Phenom II X2 545 3.0Ghz Processor 7M
Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5 2x2GB DDR2-800 Ram
Hauppauge HVR2200 TV card
Samsung f3 1Tb Harddrive
Windows 7 Media Centre Operating system

I've already got an internal DVD player i plan to install.

Will this all work?
Would you change to any better value components?
Anything else I'll need?

Cheers.

eXDee

4029 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#288962 11-Jan-2010 14:03

I approve of this build.

Lenovo

Lenovo computer and accessories deals (affiliate link).

rvangelder

352 posts

Ultimate Geek

#288972 11-Jan-2010 14:43

SATA DVD drive hopefully. Those IDE ribbons are a pain to deal with.

Sometimes when you buy components for DVD/HDD, they dont come with the SATA cables. They're cheap enough $1 each or so. Nothing like griding to a halt during the install cause you have a missing cable.

Case comes with a power supply?

64 bit edition of Windows 7 Home Premium should do.

Remote Control - dont use the one with the Hauppauge card, as they do weird things. Get a proper WMC one with physical buttons on it so you can use it without looking.

How are you connecting the HTPC to the Audio Receiver?

vinnieg

2260 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#288974 11-Jan-2010 14:52

Looks good, only thing I can think which might cause problems is the integrated ATI graphics cards?

less hassle using an Nvidia based motherboard/card. Win7 would definitely do it well :)

The 380w PSU with the case should suffice, although if you wanted to upgrade the video card you'd need a new one.

apart from those issues, good build :)

Oh and as rvangelder says above, the included remotes don't do Media centre functions, you need a separate MCE remote and receiver for that. Or just use a wireless keyboard/mouse

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

dale77

292 posts

Ultimate Geek

#289393 12-Jan-2010 19:47

Perhaps you could consider a Athlon II 250, still 3GHz but cooler... Save $40?

Your build doesn't seem to show the sound side of the HTPC. I'm pretty happy with onboard realtek ALC889 analogue out on mine.

I find my logitech 525 uni remote works well with TV, HTPC and "receiver" (z-5500). Perhaps an MCE remote will work better, but then how do you control your audio amp??

I have heard that the NSK2480 does not have a "stealthed" optical drive bay. This may not be a big issue for you if you get/have a black optical. The case itself is very well designed, my Fusion 430 is basically the same case with some unnecessary bells+whistles.

Also, my current Microsoft 5000 wireless keyboard+mouse works well. Previous el-cheapo genius caused issues (wake up at times during the movie!). Another option might be the mediaboard pro bluetooth effort with integrated touchpad.

HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-UD2H F7, AMD X2 4850e, Sapphire 4670 1GB, Corsair 4x1Gb, Adata 128Gb SSD, 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 1.2.3+OneButtonMusic, AC3Filter, Cyberlink Powercinema 6 codec, BLU-RAY: Samsung BD-F7500

browned

636 posts

Ultimate Geek

#289524 13-Jan-2010 08:47

I see Intels new Core i3 530 and DH55TC motherboard's are available. A system with that motherboard/cpu will do Full HD (including audio) and all at about 73 watts.

I would also just get 2GB ram, Windows 7 x64 runs fine for me, normally have 700MB - 1GB free memory and no slowdowns.

Home Server: AMD Threadripper 1950X, 64GB, 56TB HDD, Define R6 Case, 10GbE, ESXi 6.7, UNRAID, NextPVR, Emby Server, Plex Server.
Lounge Media Center: NVIDIA Shield TV 16GB: Kodi18 with Titan MOD, Emby.
Kids Media Center: NVIDIA Shield TV 16GB: Kodi18 with Titan MOD, Emby.
Main PC: Ryzen 7 2700, 16GB RAM, RX 570, 2 x 24"

Deev8

481 posts

Ultimate Geek

#289617 13-Jan-2010 13:16

The planned build looks pretty good to me. At some point you might consider a second disk so that you can have OS on one (which could be less than a 1TB disk) and Freeview recordings on the second disk.

vinnieg: Looks good, only thing I can think which might cause problems is the integrated ATI graphics cards? less hassle using an Nvidia based motherboard/card.

I've not had any problems with the integrated graphics on my Gigabyte 780G motherboard, so I wouldn't anticipate any with a 785G. So far as I can tell the much-discussed ATI issues are some way behind us now - that's supported by the fact that I can't remember when I last saw an actual user of ATI integrated graphics saying that they had a problem, but I still see a lot of second and third-hand reports of those problems.

rvangelder: Sometimes when you buy components for DVD/HDD, they dont come with the SATA cables. They're cheap enough $1 each or so. Nothing like griding to a halt during the install cause you have a missing cable.

The NSK2480 comes complete with two SATA cables, at least mine did in April last year.

rvangelder: Remote Control - dont use the one with the Hauppauge card, as they do weird things.

The Hauppauge HVR2200 isn't sold with a bundled remote, and the NSK2480 case doesn't have a built-in IR receiver. Something like the Hauppauge MCE Remote and Receiver Kit will do the job - that's what I am using.

dale77: I have heard that the NSK2480 does not have a "stealthed" optical drive bay. This may not be a big issue for you if you get/have a black optical.

That's right, and it's something that may or may not worry you. I personally don't mind seeing the front of my optical drive.

PANiCnz

936 posts

Ultimate Geek

#289684 13-Jan-2010 15:42

I've not had any problems with the integrated graphics on my Gigabyte 780G motherboard, so I wouldn't anticipate any with a 785G. So far as I can tell the much-discussed ATI issues are some way behind us now - that's supported by the fact that I can't remember when I last saw an actual user of ATI integrated graphics saying that they had a problem, but I still see a lot of second and third-hand reports of those problems.

AMD intergrated graphics still don't do 7.1 LPCM audio over the HDMI port, so if the end user wants to do audio over the HDMI cable they are limited to 2.1 channels, or am I missing something?

Deev8

481 posts

Ultimate Geek

#289730 13-Jan-2010 17:27

PANiCnz: AMD intergrated graphics still don't do 7.1 LPCM audio over the HDMI port

That's right - if you want 7.1 channel audio over HDMI, you can't rely on the motherboard's onboard capabilities. However most of the concern over integrated graphics capability has been about hardware accelleration for H264 video decoding - and those issues really are a thing of the past.

mm1352000

1149 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#289809 13-Jan-2010 21:05

As long as you're not using MediaPortal then the mobo should be okay. Apparently MediaPortal now requires something more powerful for dealing with 1080i...

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#289840 13-Jan-2010 22:46

Deev8:
PANiCnz: AMD intergrated graphics still don't do 7.1 LPCM audio over the HDMI port

That's right - if you want 7.1 channel audio over HDMI, you can't rely on the motherboard's onboard capabilities. However most of the concern over integrated graphics capability has been about hardware accelleration for H264 video decoding - and those issues really are a thing of the past.

Only relevant as long as you have 7.1 speaker system

Looks like most bases covered. The only point I would make is if you can get away with the integrated graphics, I would for now. Then, when you add the Blu-ray drive, you could also add an ATI 5 series card which can bitstream the HD audio, if your receiver can decode it, of course. Relatively new technology, so further down the track, things like drivers, etc. will be more compliant.

Good luck with the build. Once you get used to it, & it running properly, you won't look back.But, then, there is always something left to do: upgrades, customising, etc.

Silverstone LC14 HTPC Case/Intel E4600 CPU/GA-EP35-DS3 MOBO/Asus EN9500GT graphics/2GB RAM/total 2TB HDD space/HVR-2200 & 2X 150MCE tuner cards/LG GGC-H20L BD Drive/MCE2005/Mediaportal/TVServer 1.1.0Final/LG 55"3D LED-TV/Denon AVR-1803 receiver/X1 projector