[doof205]

Hi all, I've been tempted by XBMC for a while and having bought a readynas and found it a little slow serving media, in particular music to my squeezebox, I've decided it might be time to spec something a little better.

Now, i started off down the Zotac route, looking at the AMD E350. It seems pretty good for a 35w draw.

But then, as with all things like this, you keep searching and better ideas pop up! I came across the thread for new HTPC builds which gives some info on better spec machines and now I'm struggling to decide.

What I'm after:

XBMC
Squeezebox server
HD video
Emulator games
possibly other games like Left for dead...obviously this changes everything!

My main concern is power draw of something that will run left for dead. I was thinking maybe a celeron E3400 with some reasonable graphics card. With that combo would a 250w psu suffice?

Basically i'm trying to spec something that will just run left for dead, without worrying me about leaving it on just to possibly serve music...

This will be going through a 720p TV and audio will for now have to go over stereo phono jobbies.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Lewis

[doof205]

Just went through a few components on ebuyer:

HDD - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172258
Case - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/205560
CPU - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173863
Gigabyte board - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152225
GFX card - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/198821

Would this run on a 250w psu. Anyone got any ideas roughly how thing setup might perform in terms of idle, heavy load?

Thanks again.

[eskro]

i say no... you need at Least 400w for that GPU card if i recall good...

bringing you back to buy the famous CORSAIR CMPSU-CX430

[doof205]

Ok, any ideas roughly what power it would draw under load / idle?

It seems it's going to be much much more than an E350 system if it needs a 400w psu for the rare occasion i might play LFD2. Might not be worth it really.

EDIT: I don't know how i missed it but Toms Hardware says the E350 Zotac plays LFD2 at an average of 37fps! Quite impressive. I'm wondering what i could build to get just a bit more performance than the Zotac E 350.

[Zon2020]

Ok, any ideas roughly what power it would draw under load / idle?

It seems it's going to be much much more than an E350 system if it needs a 400w psu for the rare occasion i might play LFD2. Might not be worth it really.

There are plenty of PSU calculators you can check. Here are a couple to try:

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/

Fill in your components and get the requirements at various cpu utilization levels.

[doof205]

Ahh brilliant, i don't know why it didn't occur to me to search for a calculator.

225 watt PSU then for:

celeron e3300
geforce gt220
1 green sata
1 dvdrw
2 80mm case fans

Is that the actual power draw though? The Zotac boxes have 60 or 80w psu's and I've seen tests where they draw around 37w and never more than 40...

[PatrickVogeli]

those calculators aren really exact.. how can i get 177W with an atom + nvidia 9400gt + 1 green HDD + DVDRW drive + 2 ram sticks?

[wsume99]

^^225w is way overkill. That's why I never trust those PSU calculators.

I had the following powered by a 150 watt picoPSU w/ a 110 watt ac adapter (so it's essentially a 110w PSU) ...

sempron 140
dual tuner card
gt210
dvd drive
2 hdds
2 x 80mm fans

My rig topped out at about 90-95w MAX in that configuration and idled at ~70 watts. There is no way that a gt220 would draw that much more power.

I'd bet that you could use an i3 with a 150w picoPSU and reasonable GFX card. My advice would be to search on silentPCreview forums. I'm not a gamer so I'm not up on what card draws what power but there are lots of people over there using i3's with GFX cards in their HTPCs and powering it with 120 & 150w picoPSUs.

[Zon2020]

^^225w is way overkill. That's why I never trust those PSU calculators.

I had the following powered by a 150 watt picoPSU w/ a 110 watt ac adapter (so it's essentially a 110w PSU) ...

sempron 140
dual tuner card
gt210
dvd drive
2 hdds
2 x 80mm fans

My rig topped out at about 90-95w MAX in that configuration and idled at ~70 watts. There is no way that a gt220 would draw that much more power.

I'd bet that you could use an i3 with a 150w picoPSU and reasonable GFX card. My advice would be to search on silentPCreview forums. I'm not a gamer so I'm not up on what card draws what power but there are lots of people over there using i3's with GFX cards in their HTPCs and powering it with 120 & 150w picoPSUs.

They tend to produce too high a number for HTPCs because folks put in too high a utilization number. Use 50% and you'll get a more realistic number for an HTPC.

[doof205]

Following up on this it seems an i3-2100t might be a good solution. Have a read of this comparison between the aforementioned chip and the AMD e350 fusion. The AMD gets a thrashing.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/dis...2100t.html

It's a more expensive solution though, that's the only downside.