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+--- Thread: Your Very First HTPC? But Where do You Start? (/showthread.php?tid=94199)
- T800 - 2011-04-07
Will this do/fit/work OK:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/400w-silverpower-sp-ss-400-green-power-80-plus-sli-crossfire-120mm-fan-atx-12v
- eskro - 2011-04-07
i'd go with a Antec EarthWatts 380W Incl. VAT: £37.73
or a Corsair Builder Series 430W Incl. VAT: £33.59
- T800 - 2011-04-07
eskro Wrote:i'd go with a Antec EarthWatts 380W Incl. VAT: £37.73
or a Corsair Builder Series 430W Incl. VAT: £33.59
Thanks eskro
Any reason why I should go for one over the other if ignoring the price?
- eskro - 2011-04-07
well the ANTEC is certified 80+ Bronze, meaning, its more green & eco friendly....
- gnif - 2011-04-10
Well, to be accurate,
80+ Bronze means it has been certified by Google to be at-least 80% efficient when under 80% load.
Switch mode supplies are tricky things, when under no load, or very little, they are quite in-efficient, and when near their peak load, they are quite in-efficient.
If you are worried about the power consumption you should find out how much your system is going to require, and get a PSU that can provide slightly more then that, getting a 500+ Watt PSU for a PC that draws 300W is not such a great idea.
For your setup, at a guess I agree with eskro, but I would do the math on how much power you need first so you do not overload the PSU, 380W might be too low and PSU thermal overload & burnout may ensue.
- Superorb - 2011-04-10
gnif Wrote:Well, to be accurate,
80+ Bronze means it has been certified by Google to be at-least 80% efficient when under 80% load.
Actually, this isn't the whole picture.
The 80 PLUS performance specification requires multi-output power supplies in computers and servers to be 80% or greater energy efficient at 20%, 50% and 100% of rated load with a true power factor of 0.9 or greater.
- nowuckers - 2011-04-26
eskro firstly, thanks for all your posts and suggested builds - you and poofyhairguy are owed a large debt of gratitude from all us newbies.
I am building a HTPC based on W7 with XBMC. Will be streaming 1080 mkv from a network server in addition to websites such as Youtube and myp2p.eu (in Australia so noo Hulu yet but coming so that would be good too). My build is as per below:
INTEL BX80571E3400 CELERON E3400 2.60GHz 1MB CACHE 800FSB LGA775
Aywun MI-100 Mini-ITX Cube Case, Black w/mirror front, 200W PSU
Gigabyte ATI HD 5450 PCI-E 2.0 512MB 128-bit DDR5, DVI/ HDMI/ Display Port, DX11, Fan
Gigabyte GA-G41MT-S2P MB Intel G41+ICH7 FSB 1333MHz DDR3 1333 D-Sub PCI-Ex16 SATAII GbE
Corsair 4GB CMV4GX3M2A1333C9 (2x 2Gb) (1333MHz) DDR3 Performance solution RAM
I have a laptop 80GB HD aand will load the OS through a cd drive which I will remove once installed - won't use DVD or BR through XBMC.
Most is based on your build what are your thoughts.
Thanks again.
Cheers
- eskro - 2011-04-26
hi owuckers, can you please just create a new thread with your build?
i'll help you there so we dont hijack this thread with tons of build suggestions...
thanks
- nowuckers - 2011-04-26
Thanks very much. The new thread is below:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=100179
- jant90 - 2011-05-02
eskro, thanks a lot for your HTPC guidelines!
I was looking at an HTPC and for the motherboard I was looking at motherboards with onboard CPU and GPU, by coincidence my setup already contained Asrock E350M1 because of it's low price. And now, after reading your advice I'm almost sure of buying it (in combination with 2GB Kingston ValueRAM and an HTPC case).
However, I want to use that system for something else too, namely as NAS. The NAS-part of the system will run SABnzbd with CouchPotato (to easily get all the movies I want) and Sick Beard (to keep my series complete). I have no doubt that a system like that can easily handle all that but I'm afraid I run into problems when e.g. Sick Beard decides to download a series episode while somebody is watching a movie using XBMC like movie stuttering).
My main question: will prioritizing XBMC using the Windows task prioritizer solve any problems that might arise when other CPU intensive applications that doing their thing? If not, does anyone have a solution for this, or am I doomed to buy a faster system that has no troubles doing all that at once? And what if somebody decided to stream a movie using a mediaplayer (like a PlayOn!HD) from the bedroom while the XBMC / NAS is playing a movie, will that influence the playback or is that so low key that it won't be noticed?
Also, should I run Windows 7 or XP for my HTPC with XBMC? What will give me the best result?
Then my final question: how much will a system as described (Asrock E350M1, 2GB RAM and 1 or 2 HDD's of 5400RPM) consume in terms of power? As the system will be running 24/7 power efficiency is important so I won't be getting a cheap HTPC case with built in PSU as that one probably won't be very efficient. I will most likely get some a-grade PSU from a well known brand, but most PSU's are 250 to 350 Watts at the very minimum, that's already big time overkill for such a system right?
I look forward to some answers to the many questions I still have, thanks in advance!
- bahdbwoy - 2011-05-02
anybody want to sell me their hand-me-down? ;x
are all these things simple plug and play installs or what is recommended for a first build?
- alkit - 2011-05-08
Hi,
Just a quick q - I've just read an article online that says you can bitstream from the H55 intel chipset.
That means that it is technically possible to build a core i3 machine for
[cpu] Intel Core I3-540 3.06GHz LGA-1156 Dual-Core 73W ($113 + $0)
[mobo] ASRock H55M-LE LGA-1156 Micro-ATX ($65 + $0)
NOT NECESSARY [gpu] MSI GeForce GT210 512MB DDR3 64-bit Low Profile ($39 + $0)
[case] SILVERSTONE ML03B Micro-ATX ($60 + $0)
[psu] CORSAIR Builder Series 430W ATX12V ($40 + $0)
TOTAL: (NOT $317, rather $278)
Why would one opt for the GT210 graphics chip?
- Superorb - 2011-05-08
^^ A couple of those items are far cheaper when on sale. Also, why wouldn't you get the i3 Sandy bridge that has a much lower TDP?
- eskro - 2011-05-08
jant90 & bahdbwoy, to get more help, please create new threads... thx
alkit your right, bitstream works when using i3 cpu + H55 mobo combination....
but dont forget the ram
in my guide i had some builds that had this configuration
but i removed them....
Why?
Mainly because at the time,
many had all sorts of issues and stuff like that...
Altho i know they work,
im still reluctant to put them back in my build list...
:/
- jitaroo - 2011-05-09
Hey eskro amazing guide, I actually used this to base of my build that I just started today. Specs so far are:
CPU: Intel Core i5 Processor i5-2500 3.3GHz 6MB LGA1155
MoBo: Intel H61 Micro ATX DDR3 1333 Motherboards
GPU: EVGA GT430
The rest of the parts are all local so i'm not sure what the brands are but they are:
4GB RAM
64GB SATAII SSD
Samsung BD rd/wrte drive
OS: Yet to be determined.
So what do you guys think? I know the i5 wasn't necessary and I would have been just fine with an i3, but it was just to tempting
. Right now the plan is to install Windows 7 and run xbmc off of that. I have a zotac ion box for another room, and that one has ubuntu on it, but the headache of getting hdmi surround sound working on it is what is pushing me to windows for this box. This pc is only going to be used for xbmc, but do you guys think overclocking would be useful or should I just leave it the way it is? Oh and for those curious about storage we have around 10TB around our network through various nas-es so thats not an issue