2013-04-13, 00:20
I'm going to be buying/building a HTPC for my living room very soon and am trying to decide on what hardware to use.
Originally I was considering a mini-ITX system because I wasn't sure if the mini barebones systems were powerful enough. From what I've been reading though is the more powerful AMD APU's and Intel Celeron nettops or whatever they're called now should be able to play high bitrate 1980p files smoothly.
This would strictly be a client PC in that all media is stored on my server and the HTPC would boot directly into my media interface. 95% of the time the PC wouldn't even go to the Windows desktop. The most important aspect is size, followed by performance and then price.
I've read about the Lenovo Q190 and it seems to be what I need but being in Canada the price is $350 which is the top of my budget. I'd also be spending extra to add a SSD and IR receiver.
I've also looked at the Zotac Zboxnano and Zbox ID81 which look really great and aren't very expensive. The Foxconn nT barebones systems are also very similar.
Being that I don't need to bitstream HD audio nor to play 3D movies, from what I understand the Celeron 857 is powerful enough to handle a Group 5 HTPC. How does the AMD E-450 and E2-1800 APU's compare?
Whichever mini PC or barebones system I choose I'll be installing a small SSD, 4GB of RAM and an IR receiver. Until my house is wired for gigabit Ethernet they'll need to have wifi too. They'll connect directly to a 1080p HDTV directly through HDMI, no AV receiver.
Originally I was considering a mini-ITX system because I wasn't sure if the mini barebones systems were powerful enough. From what I've been reading though is the more powerful AMD APU's and Intel Celeron nettops or whatever they're called now should be able to play high bitrate 1980p files smoothly.
This would strictly be a client PC in that all media is stored on my server and the HTPC would boot directly into my media interface. 95% of the time the PC wouldn't even go to the Windows desktop. The most important aspect is size, followed by performance and then price.
I've read about the Lenovo Q190 and it seems to be what I need but being in Canada the price is $350 which is the top of my budget. I'd also be spending extra to add a SSD and IR receiver.
I've also looked at the Zotac Zboxnano and Zbox ID81 which look really great and aren't very expensive. The Foxconn nT barebones systems are also very similar.
Being that I don't need to bitstream HD audio nor to play 3D movies, from what I understand the Celeron 857 is powerful enough to handle a Group 5 HTPC. How does the AMD E-450 and E2-1800 APU's compare?
Whichever mini PC or barebones system I choose I'll be installing a small SSD, 4GB of RAM and an IR receiver. Until my house is wired for gigabit Ethernet they'll need to have wifi too. They'll connect directly to a 1080p HDTV directly through HDMI, no AV receiver.
