[daveozzz]

HI, been looking at a HTPC build for a while now and quite frankly I'm fed up of reading and want to start buying bits!

So can anyone see any glaring blunders in this build?

Main uses will be PVR (front & backend), and streaming AVIs and MP3 from my NAS.
Not sure if I'll want to do any encoding of PVR recordings - depends how I get on with disk space.
Definitely want to run LINUX so linux support is v important (and a was fairly major hurdle for finding supported DVB-T/T2 cards - which worries me about the rest of the hardware - will the motherboard be OK?).

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/QBhp
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/QBhp/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD A6-5400K 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£42.79 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus F2A55-M LE Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard (£49.36 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (£16.47 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Silverstone SST-GD05B-USB3.0 (Black) HTPC Case (£91.09 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£40.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £240.69
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-05-14 19:35 BST+0100)

PLUS: TBS 6280 PCIe DVB-T2 card http://www.cclonline.com/product/107207/...d/VGA0968/
PLUS: 1 or 2 WD Caviar Green 1TB sata drives I have lying around. Thinking an internal sata for OS and PVR to write to since that stuff's often deleted once recorded.
PLUS: I have a synology NAS for more permanent storage

[hdtracer]

One thing i learned since i started looking into htpc's: AMD + Linux is no good. They have poor driver support and no HD-audio under Linux. If you want Linux then Intel is the way to go.

[daveozzz]

Hmm I had heard mumblings about that but wasn't sure how serious an issue it was...

Main reason I went for A6 was price... Looking at the equivalent i3 build, it;s not that much more expensive any more (£40 - used to be more I'm sure).. think the extra is worth it?

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/UkHH
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/UkHH/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/UkHH/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor (£85.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus P8B75-M LX PLUS Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£45.81 @ Dabs)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1066 Memory (£16.28 @ Dabs)
Case: Silverstone SST-GD05B-USB3.0 (Black) HTPC Case (£91.09 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£40.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £280.15
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-05-14 20:19 BST+0100)

[sapper6fd]

The AMD issue has been around for a while. Some people have gotten them to work but it involves a lot of Linux knowledge and probably some driver programming experience. If you get it up and running on an AMD processor there is a high chance it will break whenever an update comes around which will pose further issues.

With that said, the i3-3220 is a great processor for an HTPC and runs Linux without issue. I currently have the i3-3240 running Ubuntu 12.10 and XBMC 12.2 without issue. If its a Linux build your after, Intel is the best option even though it costs a little more.

[charlie0440]

One thing i learned since i started looking into htpc's: AMD + Linux is no good. They have poor driver support and no HD-audio under Linux. If you want Linux then Intel is the way to go.

+1

Or just fit a cheap NVIDIA card. But I would go with a Intel base either way!

[daveozzz]

OK I'm sold on the Intel thing...

more questions..

1. Would I definitely get away without a GPU?
2. What's a good socket LGA1155 ATX motherboard for a HTPC with HDMI and gigabit LAN...? The one I picked above has no HDMI-out - duh.
(Seems like not so many of the intel socket motherboards have HDMI.. is that to do with because they're mostly used with GPUs?)

---

(are Asrock any good..? this one seems to have what I'm looking for:
Motherboard: ASRock B75M R2.0 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£51.48 @ Ebuyer)

[sapper6fd]

No need for a GPU if your running XBMC on linux and not planning on playing any resource intensive games. Youtube works fine, HD movies work fine, you would even be able to play 3D movies just fine.

Any particular reason why you want an ATC form factor? Would you be willing to get into a Mini or a Mico ATX motherboard? Less power consumption with those smaller boards. At the end of the day so long as the motherboard supports on board graphics and has the video / audio outputs you require, any of them will do fine. It comes down to personal preference.

[daveozzz]

Any particular reason why you want an ATC form factor?

Whoops - I missed out the "Micro" part in my post... it is indeed Micro ATX motherboards I'm looking at

[smalle]

OK I'm sold on the Intel thing...

more questions..

1. Would I definitely get away without a GPU?
2. What's a good socket LGA1155 ATX motherboard for a HTPC with HDMI and gigabit LAN...? The one I picked above has no HDMI-out - duh.
(Seems like not so many of the intel socket motherboards have HDMI.. is that to do with because they're mostly used with GPUs?)

---

(are Asrock any good..? this one seems to have what I'm looking for:
Motherboard: ASRock B75M R2.0 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£51.48 @ Ebuyer)

The Intel Core i3-3220 has got a GPU: Intel® HD Graphics 4000!
Your MB needs to support it, but it's no problem for the ASRock B75M .

[Dougie Fresh]

The Intel i3-3220 has the Intel HD 2500. The i3-3225 has the Intel HD 4000. For 1080p video though, there's no difference. It's like choosing a V4 or a V6 to drive to work .

[daveozzz]

Hmmm Do I even need an i3...?

How do Celerons do in HTPCs?
Could pick up a Intel Celeron G1620 for about £50 less than the i3...

[charlie0440]

You don't need a I3 all depends on how much you wanna spend. My g850 is probably overkill for openelec and it plays everything with ease

[Dougie Fresh]

The Celeron mobile 847 works great with OpenELEC and that's only a 1.1GHz mobile processor. Any of the desktop Celeron/Pentium CPUs will do great.

[daveozzz]

The price of that GD05B case has just shot up.. anyone know if a Silverstone Milo ML03 would do the job just as well? The TV card I'm looking at I believe is low profile so I guess I'd be OK..