HTPC build

[Sazar]

Re: Media Centre Advice

The 8600 is a good card.

Overall there should not be much of a difference. The overall noise you mention is offset by the worse deinterlacing. I prefer a marginally less cleaner/smoother image than a cleaner/less smooth image. Either way you will not really notice a difference.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/video-playback2_9.html#sect2

Excellent article and it covers all kinds of cards (high-end, main-stream and low-end).

 

[indyjones]

Re: Media Centre Advice

Thank you an interesting read! Seems there is nothing in it really. Will just have to see whats availible at the best price. Will make my final selection of components this weekend and post them for opinons

 

[ShepsCrook]

Re: Media Centre Advice

Personally, that's a great media center setup.

I'm running a:

Intel 945GTP board
Intel P4 - 3.4ghz HT
1.5GB Ram 3x512MB
1x Samsung Spinpoint 160GBSATA
1x Samsung Spinpoint 160GBIDE
Hauppauge PVR150 with Remote
Sony DRU-510 DVDRW Drive (yeah oh well it's old)
Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 Sound Card
Nvidia 7300GS Video
Windows Vista Ultimate

It's a great setup. Does a really nice job.

I can't imagine having a better Media Center PC than main PC rig. Since your specs say AMD Athlon XP and whatnot. Unless you're at your Home theatre more than your PC or if this is for someone else.

I would go with the black case as most home theatre setups IE: Receiver, DVD Player, and whatnot are Black. That way it blends in. UNLESS you want your HTPC to be the focus of your media center, then silver would be great. I'd say with an LCD on the front like that, it will be the focus anyway.

 

[indyjones]

Re: Media Centre Advice

LOL I know it will be miles better than my main system, however my main system will be upgraded shortly as soon as I decide on a motherboard chipset :S
The budget has got wayy out of hand will skimp on the gfx card for now I think as it will only be connected to a dodgy old telly until the new year

how about one of these ? 3D FUZION GEFORCE 7300LE?

I know its a rubbish card but all it needs to do is output via svhs, I can use the onboard for the LCD on the case.

That way I can get a really nice silent card with HDMI built in when I eventially get the new telly or try the onboard hdmi.

 

[ShepsCrook]

Re: Media Centre Advice

I would at least get the 7300GS. or GT. The price isn't THAT big of a difference.

 

[indyjones]

Re: Media Centre Advice

The GS is 3 times the price of the current card I am watching on ebay as I said its a stop gap for 3-4 months and just for SVHS output. Or is it just that bad???

 

[indyjones]

Re: Media Centre Advice

Failing that the 8400GS is the same price as the 7300GS if i do spend a little more.....
Don't suppose anybody has a PCie card they don't want

 

[indyjones]

Re: Media Centre Advice

Personally, that's a great media center setup.


I would go with the black case as most home theatre setups IE: Receiver, DVD Player, and whatnot are Black. That way it blends in.

Yup I did go with black in the end thank you

 

[indyjones]

Re: Media Centre Advice

Hi all

Just a quick update

Ordered some more parts today:

Black Pioneer 212 DVD writer (SATA)
Black Gold Dual Digital Tuner Card (PCIe)
Chunky optical cable for connection between soundcard and decoder
will be placing the big order soon.

Can a moderator please change the title to "HTPC build" or something simular?

Cheers

 

[fitz]

Can a moderator please change the title to "HTPC build" or something simular?

Done

 

[indyjones]

Thanks

 

[indyjones]

Right just about to order the final lump of hardware to complete the media centre

Ordering the following:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Socket 775 2.33GHz 4MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
• Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H iG33 Express, S775, PCI-E(x16), DDR2 667/800 MHz, SATA II, uATX, On Board VGA
• Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT Ultimate 256MB PCI-E GDDR3 Dual-DVI-I/TVO Graphics Card (Retail) (Nice heat pipe card)
• Corsair TwinX 2048Mb DDR2-6400 (2x1024Mb) w/ Heat Spreaders
• Zalman CNPS9500-AT Socket 775 HeatSink / Fan
• Corsair VX Series 450W Active PFC PSU
• Microsoft Windows Vista - Home Premium Edition - oem

What do people think? Sazar I gave in anfd your right the ATi card was the way to go

If anybody can make any suggestions for any changes please say before I place the order a bit later


Cheers

 

[Lawman82]

Hey Indy, have been enjoying the chat on your build, I'm just starting my. It will be for media and a little bit of gaming, here's what I'm putting together:

Ultra Micro Fly MX6 w/ Ultra 600 ATX power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ / 3.0 GHz w/ Thermaltake Max Orb
Gigabyte GA-MA69VM S2L w/ 4 Gigs of Dual Channel Ram (undecided which type)
Samsung DVD Writer SATA, Seagate 500GB SATA HHD, e-GeForce 8600 GT 512 MB

This system is going to be placed in what my wife calls the man room, because once I go in I don't come out unless I run out of beer.

 

[Sazar]

Right just about to order the final lump of hardware to complete the media centre

Ordering the following:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Socket 775 2.33GHz 4MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
• Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H iG33 Express, S775, PCI-E(x16), DDR2 667/800 MHz, SATA II, uATX, On Board VGA
• Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT Ultimate 256MB PCI-E GDDR3 Dual-DVI-I/TVO Graphics Card (Retail) (Nice heat pipe card)
• Corsair TwinX 2048Mb DDR2-6400 (2x1024Mb) w/ Heat Spreaders
• Zalman CNPS9500-AT Socket 775 HeatSink / Fan
• Corsair VX Series 450W Active PFC PSU
• Microsoft Windows Vista - Home Premium Edition - oem

What do people think? Sazar I gave in anfd your right the ATi card was the way to go

If anybody can make any suggestions for any changes please say before I place the order a bit later


Cheers

It looks pretty good. Nothing really unbalances it, which is my no.1 criteria when building a system.

For the video card, either way would work honestly. The new drivers from nvidia seem to have helped out a fair bit and honestly, there isn't much between them. I just know that from before, the hardware processing on the AMD card seemed to be better and that likely means there is room for improvement.

 

[Sazar]

Hey Indy, have been enjoying the chat on your build, I'm just starting my. It will be for media and a little bit of gaming, here's what I'm putting together:

Ultra Micro Fly MX6 w/ Ultra 600 ATX power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ / 3.0 GHz w/ Thermaltake Max Orb
Gigabyte GA-MA69VM S2L w/ 4 Gigs of Dual Channel Ram (undecided which type)
Samsung DVD Writer SATA, Seagate 500GB SATA HHD, e-GeForce 8600 GT 512 MB

This system is going to be placed in what my wife calls the man room, because once I go in I don't come out unless I run out of beer.

For overall performance/price, I still think that you can't go wrong with the Intel processors, especially the ones with more cache. But, the system isn't too bad

I would look to save a few bucks and go with either a graphics card with less memory (same processor), or something with a beefier processor and less memory for the same price. Something with the limited memory bus the 8600GT has can't make full use of the entire memory capacity on there.

Thanks,

Satish

 

[indyjones]

It looks pretty good. Nothing really unbalances it, which is my no.1 criteria when building a system.

For the video card, either way would work honestly. The new drivers from nvidia seem to have helped out a fair bit and honestly, there isn't much between them. I just know that from before, the hardware processing on the AMD card seemed to be better and that likely means there is room for improvement.

Thank you

One small change was I went for a [FONT=&quot]430w Tagan EasyCon over the corsair power supply, I decided being modular was import for me as I really would be hardly using any connectors especially things like PCIe leads which would just clutter things up.

As for the gfx what swayed it with me is the Ati card would offer the best option for now (rubbish old CRT) and for the new HD LCD, as not all of the geforce cards support hdcp or 1080p and they can be a pain to hookup with hdmi sound. Also on the drivers front ATi has already promised noise reduction functions to be comparible to the nvidia ones. the final thing which sold the card was apparently the hd2600 cards are better than the 8500 cards for multiscreen setups

Now I just need to wait for it all to turn up

One shipment has been delayed already, another is on its way, and the rest should be with me by the end of the week. problem is there has been more postal stikes I think
[/FONT]

 

[indyjones]

Hey Indy, have been enjoying the chat on your build, I'm just starting my. It will be for media and a little bit of gaming, here's what I'm putting together:

Ultra Micro Fly MX6 w/ Ultra 600 ATX power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ / 3.0 GHz w/ Thermaltake Max Orb
Gigabyte GA-MA69VM S2L w/ 4 Gigs of Dual Channel Ram (undecided which type)
Samsung DVD Writer SATA, Seagate 500GB SATA HHD, e-GeForce 8600 GT 512 MB

This system is going to be placed in what my wife calls the man room, because once I go in I don't come out unless I run out of beer.

Seems nice, I agree that currently intel holds the sway, and you need a serious reason not to buy intel currently. My system parts were also picked to be as near silent as possible, as the CPU should have the new cooler G0 stepping too. S
till it will be good to see how your build goes maybe post some pictures? I intend to Hopefully ShepsCrook could post a picture of his running as he seems to have a nice system too.

 

[Lawman82]

Indy, hopefully I will be able to post some pictures, I'm doing alot like you are, feeling out what would work and mixing and matching things. A modular power system is one way keep alot of the wiring down, good luck with your system.

 

[Lawman82]

Hey Indy, how did you decided on what type and brand of Ram you were going to use? I've been reading and reading, it seem to make me crazy, any help, will be gaming on this thing too.

 

[indyjones]

Hey Indy, how did you decided on what type and brand of Ram you were going to use? I've been reading and reading, it seem to make me crazy, any help, will be gaming on this thing too.

Hi Lawman

I went for the following: Corsair TwinX 2048Mb DDR2-6400 (2x1024Mb)
800mhz ram which is fine for a system of this type. As shown I went with Corsair as it was a good price but any of the major brands are good in my opinion; Corsair, Kingston, OCZ, Crucial also running Geil memory at the moment which seems to be fine.
The only other thing I would mention is I tend to like buying ram kits (ie 2 x 1 gig) as you get the benefit of dual channel operation plus pat sticks are matched for maximum compatibility.

Hope this help