Projects
New Hi-Def HTPC
Having decided that a new PC was indeed required, I had several ideas in mind of what the PC will be used for:
1. TV Capture and recording.
2. Photo Library / Home Movies
3. DVD & Movie files
4. Music server
5. HD-DVD & Blu-ray HDD playback.
6. Work/Office Backup storage – mainly through remote access
Design Factors
Similar to Adam, I had a list of factors, wish list regarding the HTPC. These are listed below in order of priority.
1. Performance / PQ / SQ
2. Aesthetics
3. Very Quiet
4. Cool running
5. Using existing PCL cards
6. Price
Hardware/Software Spec:
So to summarise the content of the PC
Motherboard Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard
CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz) Socket
AM2
RAM Kingston 2GB KIT (2X1GB) DDR2 667MHz/PC2-5300
Graphics Card MSI 8600GT Silent edition 256MB
DVI HDTV PCI-E
Hard Drives Three Samsung Spinpoint 500GB
SATA 2 Drives
Case OrigenAE X11 A2 Case with three silent
fans
PSU 430w Seasonic S12-430 aPFC PSU
DVD Drive Pioneer Blue-Ray DVD recorder Combi
(Pioneer BDC-202BK 5x BD-ROM + 12x12 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter )
HD Drive: Xbox HD-DVD drive
TV Card: Black-Gold PCL single DVB (freeview)
card
Satellite Card: Techno-trend s2-3200 Budget
card
OS: Windows XP – MCE 2005
Software includes:
• CoreAVC
• MatroskaSplitter
• ffdshow
• Slysloft’s AnyDVD
• Cyberlink’s PowerDVD Ultra 7.3
• AC3 Filter
• Graph-edit & Film-merit
• DVB-viewer
Cost of software is harder to determine, but with PowerDVD, AnyDVD and the othes
i would guess in the region of £100
So a total in the region of £1250
GPU
I have read several times that playing HD material utilises CPU intensive rather than GPU intensive, and as such that a motherboard board with on bard graphics would be sufficient. However, maybe I am old fashioned, but I felt more comfortable with a slightly juicy Motherboard that can offer support. Also I wanted a silent GPU, and have been happy with my existing NVidia Graphics card. As such I opted for the MSI 8600GT Silent edition 256MB DVI HDTV PCI-E card; with a hefty heat sink; As such it is silent in operation.
CPU
I have always been an AMD Athlon geek, mostly by habit but I didn't see the point in straying from them now, I had read various articles on CPU brand and speed, and finally opted for AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz) Socket AM2 Energy Efficient. I had considered the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+. Several people have commented that the slightly slower CPU works well with Hi-def, but I thought a little extra would be worth while and was only an extra £15 or so. It also has several good reports of over clocking.
Motherboard
My previous home builds were Asus Motherboards, based on recommendation from colleagues here at in the IT dept at work. I had not had any problems with them and so why change.
I looked at various ASUS boards including ATX and mATX. In the end I opted for the ATX, mainly as it has more connectivity in terms of SATA, IDE and PCL slots etc.
So which motherboard? I opted for the Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard with wireless. However due to the location, I regret this option though it wasn’t much more expensive. Again the motherboard has good right ups, and is easily clock able, though not yet looked into this.
RAM
Currently using the Recommended in the thread, I opted for the Kingston 2GB KIT (2X1GB) DDR2 667MHz/PC2-5300.
Case
As with several other people, this seems to be the hardest decision involved in a HTPC build. The only easy choice for me was the colour in silver as nearly all my other components in my AV set up are silver, if they are hidden from view by a black cloth.
This involved lots of searching, lots of options, including the Silverstone series, one DVD Drive bay, or two? One factor that I wanted was at least 4 hard drives capacity, which the X11A2 from OrigenAE had, though it only had one internal 5 inch drive bay. An inbuilt Infra red receiver became a must have to for the MCE remote control.
Whilst still having some doubts, I opted for the OrigenAE X11 Case. It is a lovely looking case, well engineered and heavy. It also has plenty of underside ventilation slots together with a cooling fan, and two exhaust fans on the rear wall. Inside it seems reasonably well thought out a huge expanse at the back for the Ps supply and motherboard. The front area was slightly fiddlier but nothing unworkable. Just need a screwdriver with a strong magnetic head.
It came with three 80mm fans, which I discarded for three quiet fans that I use to cool my AV cupboard. When the system is running with the lid open there is some noise, I am guessing it is the CPU though it could be the PSU fan.
As already suggested, It also takes a Full ATX PSU which is great. I opted for the 430w Seasonic S12-430 aPFC PSU which is meant to be quiet, hopefully. I need to ascertain if the noise is the CPU or PSU; and also how loud is it in situ.
Remote / VFD
Just need to resolve my VFD issues at the moment, and in particular my Infra red receiver. Also I want to edit the text on display.
Sound
Sound for me in the longer term will be important, and I will invest in a more audiophile sound card possibly. However my mother board can support the new formats (I hope) and I will look into this in the future. Until then I will connect it up via SP/DIF digital connection. My AV amp has only one set of connections for 6 channel audio, and that is taken up by my Denon player for Multi-channel music. So need to look into this later.
Storage
Currently working with 2 x Samsung Spinpoint 500GB drives. One is partitioned currently to 30GB for the C:\ partition, and the rest as data. The other drive is formatted into 500GB. Both connected by SATA obviously. I may increase this later. Or look into network attached storage. Guess it depends if I rip my DVD’s to hard drive.
OS & Software
I already have an aging copy of MCE 2005. As such I installed this, and, what surprised me was there were no activation issues, as I have probably loaded it too many times on a couple of machines.
Having installed Command antiviral software, I then connected to Microsoft’s servers using the update option, and left the Pc over night and more to upgrade, needing some 120 updates including SP 2 and the MCE SP.