• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Building an HTPC

R

russianboy

New Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2005
Messages
1,799 (0.25/day)
System Specs
Processor AMD 3500+ Venice at stock
Motherboard ECS K8T890-A
Memory 1 Gb Corsair Valueram CAS 3
Video Card(s) Connect3d X800 GTO OC'd to 551.25/551.25
Storage 4 mixed up drives
Display(s) Acer AL2216W 22"LCD
Case Generic noname crap
Audio Device(s) Realtec AC'97
Power Supply 500 watt Ultra PSU
Software Win2k Pro, XP, Ubuntu linux, and Vista
What kind of hardware do you guys recommend?

My budget is...inconclusive, basically I want a decent system, and if that means $200 fine, if it means $600, fine. But I'd like to keep it under $500.

We are using a standard TV at the moment, but we are planning to get a 1080P soon.

Stuff we will be using it for:
recording of LOTS of movie/tv material
internet browsing
burning DVDs of movies
gaming
music listening.



We have a TiVo system right now, and Direct TV, if that helps.

We HOPE that we don't have to install vista on it, so I suppose we will go with XP media center for now (unless there is a good alternative)

We have a case ordered, with remote.
 
overclocking?
what's your preference between intel/amd nvidia/ati
 
I am an AMD/ATi guy, and I don't wanna bother with overclocking.
 
amd 690g based boards are a good proposition for a htpc (if youre thinking onboard graphics that is), along with an energy efficient athlon (less energy use = potentially quieter)
can you find links to the case?, or at least some ideas of whats possible with it i.e. matx/full atx, low profile/full size expansion slots, oh and if a psu is included in the case, what wattage it is
 
uhh...what about the tuner card?
 
Get a barebones system. Then if you want to store movies, a raid card and some 500Gb drives will store many. HD2600, sound and video, vidoe decode onboard.



I am going to try out Windows Home Server here in a few days hopefully and will report back as to it being shit, or the shit.
 
Well, as you're an amd fan then i'd definately recommend one of the 690g boards, as they have many good htpc features (theres a chipset overview here: http://www.hothardware.com/articles/AMDs_690GV_Series_Chipset_Preview_And_Performance_Testing/ ) also worth noting is most boards with this chipset have hdmi AND svideo tv-out.
Samsung hard drives are usually the quietest (general consensus and personal opinion), and LG optical drives are usually the quietest (just a personal opinion, though they're certainly a good deal quieter than Asus, NEC (sony/optiarc), Liteon and Benq)
And yes, xp media centre is the best choice, easier to kill drm with (im SURE this is important to YOU :laugh:)
If you did want a dedicated graphics card then i'd suggest a HD2400/2600 (depending what level of gaming you want of course), their t.v. out functions much better than nvidia's (i have an 8 series nvidia and still use my ati x1800 for t.v. out as its much better, in driver options and , more importantly, picture quality)
 
no vista?! What about Vista Home Premium which has a built in media center? Much better than the XP media center (:eugh:)
 
I'm running an AMD X2 3600+ as the basis of my media centre - using XP media centre and I'm very happy with it. The 3600+ is cheap, runs cool and has plenty of power for a media centre. It also supports 'cool n quiet' which is crucial for a media PC, you want to hear those movies over the fan noise I presume!
 
Exceededgoku said:
no vista?! What about Vista Home Premium which has a built in media center? Much better than the XP media center (:eugh:)
Click to expand...

this is russianboy were talking here, and media centre has less (and easier to disable completely) DRM
 
In fact I can recommend all the components in my system - see my sig
 
ya Vista needs one arm and a leg and 16 brains to open a notepad:roll:
 
make that 32 brains, 1 gb is not enough to open firefox without something crashing on my pac :P
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top