I Want An Eco Media PC/Download Box

[DaveK]

Partially inspired from the SEVERE freezing weather conditions in Ireland, I want to build a pc that is for just streaming media to my Xbox 360 and for downloading. So it will be left on for long periods at a time, I do that now but don't think upping the voltage on my PC helps for the power consumption. I don't know what parts to buy, all I know is that I want it to be really low power consumption and to stream 1080p video and preferably 4 sata ports for storage.

The only parts I know I want are 2TB WD green drives but I not sure what else. I need a full computer (CPU, ram, mobo, psu and case)

Whats all this ION stuff or whatever, I haven't been paying attention to it lol

EDIT: crap, posted in the wrong forum lol

 

[AhokZYashA]

take an intel atom with ION graphics card..
less than 200US$
and do the 1080p easy as pie

 

[DaveK]

I take it this is what I'm looking for: Click

Not much choice in cases here, I guess the Antec P180 Mini would do. It's smallish and €79 which isn't too expensive.

Hopefully the 2TB Western Digital drives go down in price, they're currently €175. Also need to get my Corsair TX650W fixed, shipping on that is approx €45.

Total cost is around €290 without a HDD, kind of expensive but I guess it will save on electricity bills in the long run. It will probably pay off with a year of lower electricity bills, not to mention the savings over the next couple of years.

 

[douglatins]

No no ION are overpriced because Intel hates ION, get a AMD mATX build with a undervolted proc

 

[DaveK]

I don't consider €120 expensive for a mobo, CPU and GPU.

My build will consist of these parts:

Antec P180 Mini
Asus AT3N7A-I (1.6GHz Dual Core Atom & nVidia ION)
1TB Samsung F2 EcoGreen
2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 PC2-6400
Sony NEC DVDRW Sata Drive
Corsair TX650W

I need to send the power supply off for repair before I can use it, that will cost €44, I need a VGA cable and 2 power cables and somewhere down the line I'll get a 2TB Western Digital Green drive.

 

[douglatins]

I mean spend a little more in a low voltage amd and get a lot more bang per buck

 

[Mussels]

AMD + undervolt.

ATOM/ION is underpowered for 1080P, streaming or playing. When you 'stream' you're actually re-encoding it half the time, and thats massively CPU intensive.

Look at my sig pic/media PC (you can click the image for the thread about it) for some details, i got that system to ~50W power usage and it shits all over the atom for performance.

 

[douglatins]

AMD + undervolt.

ATOM/ION is underpowered for 1080P, streaming or playing. When you 'stream' you're actually re-encoding it half the time, and thats massively CPU intensive.

Look at my sig pic/media PC (you can click the image for the thread about it) for some details, i got that system to ~50W power usage and it shits all over the atom for performance.

Thats my point though more elaborated

 

[DaveK]

I'm actually thinking of cutting out the middle man and just having the PC in the living room connected to the TV.

Atom/ION works with Blu-ray, but the Asus mobo only has 3 Sata ports which means only 2 HDDs, any suggestions in the AMD camp? I don't know much about AMD.

 

[douglatins]

Something like this, a matx board http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131609

and this http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/17183/1/

 

[DaveK]

Ok, so I can have the AMD Athlon II X2 240 and a choice of the Asus M4A785-M or the Asus M4A785D-M PRO. Comparing the specs of the boards now, pretty similar.

On the plus side, the AMD board I'm looking at have a better colour scheme (no side window, but the fact I know it's there would bother me) and 6/5 Sata ports instead of a measly 3 and they both have HDMI and Toslink for when I never get around to getting surround sound

Will undervolting go smoothly? I don't want to have to keep messing around with the BIOS, I hate rebooting

 

[Mussels]

Ok, so I can have the AMD Athlon II X2 240 and a choice of the Asus M4A785-M or the Asus M4A785D-M PRO. Comparing the specs of the boards now, pretty similar.

On the plus side, the AMD board I'm looking at have a better colour scheme (no side window, but the fact I know it's there would bother me) and 6/5 Sata ports instead of a measly 3 and they both have HDMI and Toslink for when I never get around to getting surround sound

Will undervolting go smoothly? I don't want to have to keep messing around with the BIOS, I hate rebooting

have a look at the giga board i have. While asus Vs giga is often debatable, the giga boards have dolby digital/DTS encoding like the high end dedicated cards.

if you have home cinema speakers (or plan to) its a massive plus in favour of the gigabyte 780g/785G boards