[nickmckuk]

Hello,

I am looking to build my first HTPC on a budget of around £300/ $450. Just wanting some advice on the hardware side of things from people who have attempted a similar thing.

I'm wanting to run windows 7, store/play ripped movies and music, would like Blu-Ray player and possibly some gaming. IR remote control option would also be cool.

Been looking at some hardware and so far I'm looking at the following - any advice is much appreciated.

- Motherboard - ASRock A75m
- CPU - AMD A6 3500
- RAM - Corsair 4GB DDR3
- HDD - WD Caviar 2tb/ 3tb
- Case - Seen a few nice ones but from what I've seen/read Silverstone seem to have a few options that meet my requirements.

Thanks.

[cwide]

I think you are going to have a hard time keeping it under 300 unless you already own a few of those things and have a windows license already.

The A6 is perfect for HTPC use, but if you want to do any gaming over low to medium settings you will need something else. In most gaming rigs people usually go Intel CPU + separate video card. Or you could step your APU up to an A10 and you would be OK.... really depends what games you are playing though. You could also save some money going away from an ITX board since it looks like you will probably need an mATX case for your storage and bluray device.

I used to have a Silverstone ML03b case. It was kind of big but looked good. Probably the best value HTPC case out there IMO.

[nickmckuk]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I already have the OS so would be saving there... It's mainly just the hardware I need to buy. Was thinking about using the mATX case just so I'd have a bit more room to expand in future should I need to but didn't realise there was much price different between ITX/ ATX MoBo. Can you recommend a board?

Size wise I'm not too bothered as it will be standing along side my TV unit and replacing my BluRay player and external HDD. As long as it looks good!

As for gaming I tend to use my Xbox for most of my gaming but have a couple of nice emulators I wouldn't mind running through it so not too demanding graphics wise.

[cwide]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asrock-Socket-A7...557&sr=8-1

I guess when you said A75M you didn't necessarily mean ITX. Really any A75 board will be fine. You would also probably be fine with an A55 board, but A75 isn't much more.. if at all.

The A6-3500 should be fine for emulators. I liked my Silverstone ML03b.

[nickmckuk]

Thanks for this.

I was looking at the ITX but the mATX version is about £25-£30 cheaper.

I do like the look of that case too. It would sit nicely along side the Virgin Media TiVo box.

Thanks

[kinetik]

Here is the case I went with on my latest HTPC build.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6811108196

If you can afford it, get a SSD for the system drive. You won't be disappointed.

[nickmckuk]

That case does look very smart but thinking I'll need more room than ITX. Certainly another brand to look at though so thanks.

As for the SSD, I was thinking about getting a smaller SSD at a later date to use as a boot drive. Keep windows and xbmc running from that then use the caviar for storage. What you think?

[stammie]

That case does look very smart but thinking I'll need more room than ITX. Certainly another brand to look at though so thanks.

As for the SSD, I was thinking about getting a smaller SSD at a later date to use as a boot drive. Keep windows and xbmc running from that then use the caviar for storage. What you think?

One word of advice if going for a mATX case, I went that route for a recent cheap HTPC build so I could add more hdd's in the future,
the case I went for would only take mATX PSU's and I found it very hard to find an affordable mATX PSU that was also quiet,
in the end at £40 the PSU I got ended up being the most expensive item in my new budget build.
I can't complain too much though, with a slight modification of the dvd drive bracket with a drill my smallish case now has a SSD and two 2.5" hdd's fitted with room for two more 3.5" hdd's in the future.
I still only spent about £160 all told on it for a very capable HTPC/mini media server although my specs are lower than yours with the CPU being an AMD A4 3400 and A55m Asrock mobo

I have the SSD set up as you described, only Windows and my main programs are on it, the other two drives store everything else, even on my low specced machine it makes everything lightning fast

[s2tephen]

Go for a pico power supply take up very little space I am using one in my build and all works well
M/B MSI FM2-A75MA-E35
CPU AMD A10 5700
4 Gig Ram
160 Watt Pico PSU
256 SSD
1TB 3.5 H/D

[nickmckuk]

That case does look very smart but thinking I'll need more room than ITX. Certainly another brand to look at though so thanks.

As for the SSD, I was thinking about getting a smaller SSD at a later date to use as a boot drive. Keep windows and xbmc running from that then use the caviar for storage. What you think?

One word of advice if going for a mATX case, I went that route for a recent cheap HTPC build so I could add more hdd's in the future,
the case I went for would only take mATX PSU's and I found it very hard to find an affordable mATX PSU that was also quiet,
in the end at £40 the PSU I got ended up being the most expensive item in my new budget build.
I can't complain too much though, with a slight modification of the dvd drive bracket with a drill my smallish case now has a SSD and two 2.5" hdd's fitted with room for two more 3.5" hdd's in the future.
I still only spent about £160 all told on it for a very capable HTPC/mini media server although my specs are lower than yours with the CPU being an AMD A4 3400 and A55m Asrock mobo

I have the SSD set up as you described, only Windows and my main programs are on it, the other two drives store everything else, even on my low specced machine it makes everything lightning fast

Yeah I see what you're saying about most mATX cases. Looking at the Silverstone ML03b mentioned in an earlier post it has plenty of space for 5x 2.5" HDD or 3x 3.5" HDD's which should be ample for what I'm needing whilst not being much bigger than my TiVo box. Should integrate nicely into my TV cabinet.

Interesting what you're saying about your setup as that was a similar setup to what I was originally thinking but just to increase the budget by £60 I can upgrade to slightly higher specs and be sure it's going to handle everything I need with ease for the foreseeable future. How does your AMD A4 and ASRock A55m handle 1080p video playback? And how does it perform for streaming things from say Netflix?

---

Go for a pico power supply take up very little space I am using one in my build and all works well
M/B MSI FM2-A75MA-E35
CPU AMD A10 5700
4 Gig Ram
160 Watt Pico PSU
256 SSD
1TB 3.5 H/D

Nice spec.

For me the A10 is a bit of an overkill for what I am needing. Nifty piece of kit but since I am only really after multimedia playback functionality I can't really justify spending the extra money. I would imagine it takes some cooling too?

I am hoping to limit the number of fans needed to keep the noise to a minimum whilst playing movies. The Silverstone ML03b has some nice venting on the sides which should help. Thanks for the heads up on the PSU - I'll have a look into them. What case do you use?

[stammie]

My A4 handles everything up to full uncompressed bd isos just fine.

I don't have Netflix so can't comment for sure how it would cope but an educated guess would be it'll be ok,
every browser based stream I've tried with it so far has been perfect, the highest being ESPN player and BBC Iplayer hd streams which its handled without breaking into a sweat.

You have to remember you get what you pay for, my build is not an all singing all dancing pc, its a very capable, reasonably low powered HTPC/mini server/download machine.
It suits my needs perfectly but if you need more power and can afford an extra 60 quid yours is a pretty good low cost build

[nickmckuk]

Thanks. That's quite useful since the Mrs likes catching up using BBC iPlayer and 4OD. and if I know that spec works well mine should be spot on too!