2013-05-28, 05:14
I previously build an A6-3500 box in a full ATX case with an A75-UD3 board from Gigabyte, it was later upgraded to an A8-3870K since the CPU was EOLed and it was cheap on Boxing day. That machine is running Windows 7 and is an all in one, XBMC/Steam/SABNZB/CouchPotato/SickBeard/Transmission machine with 10TB of storage in it. My roommate loved it and she's having me build her an OpenELEC machine.
CPU: A6-5600K ($61.99)
MOBO: MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 ($59.94)
RAM: Corsair CMV4GX3M1A1333C9 4GB ($23.99)
WIFI: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 450MBPS Dual-Band Wireless N PCI-E Adapter ($29.99)
PSU: Thermaltake TR2 500W Power Supply ($39.99)
Case: Nmedia HTPC-6000B ($74.99)
Remote: Mediagate GP-IR01BK ($27.99) (This is getting to be a tricky remote to find even though I'm a fan of it, any idea why?)
She wants it to later hold HDDs with media, I'd have gone with an ATX case but she wanted something more suitable to being next to the TV, so she picked out the HTPC-6000B from Nmedia. It's sorta big but it'll look the part and will hold up to 7 HDDs. For OS storage I'll be using a recycled 2.5 20GB HDD that was removed from an Xbox 360 once upon a time.
While this isn't as super silent or as tiny as a lot of boxes, my desire was more to have it be flexible and have longevity. Hopefully the A6-5600K will be enough to decode h.265/HEVC and/or VP9 when they become common. I wanted to avoid the trap people have landed in with their little APU boxes like E-350s. I don't mean to insult those awesome little boxes, but their uses are going to be going 'GOD DAMNIT. D:' in 12-24 months when newer stuff becomes popular. Anime fans have already seen this with h.264 10bit. I'm not certain if the A6-5600K will be enough to have this box last 4-7 years, when 4K material becomes more popular it might need some upgrades but it shouldn't need more than a replacement FM2 CPU or some sort of hardware accelerator going into one of the PCI-E slots. It should be a lot nicer than having to toss a while box out the window and start from scratch in a few years. She's a Linux fan so this'll be my first time building an OpenELEC box when I prefer Windows 7.
Everything has shipped and it should arrive Tuesday, I'll post some pics and comments when that happens.
CPU: A6-5600K ($61.99)
MOBO: MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 ($59.94)
RAM: Corsair CMV4GX3M1A1333C9 4GB ($23.99)
WIFI: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 450MBPS Dual-Band Wireless N PCI-E Adapter ($29.99)
PSU: Thermaltake TR2 500W Power Supply ($39.99)
Case: Nmedia HTPC-6000B ($74.99)
Remote: Mediagate GP-IR01BK ($27.99) (This is getting to be a tricky remote to find even though I'm a fan of it, any idea why?)
She wants it to later hold HDDs with media, I'd have gone with an ATX case but she wanted something more suitable to being next to the TV, so she picked out the HTPC-6000B from Nmedia. It's sorta big but it'll look the part and will hold up to 7 HDDs. For OS storage I'll be using a recycled 2.5 20GB HDD that was removed from an Xbox 360 once upon a time.
While this isn't as super silent or as tiny as a lot of boxes, my desire was more to have it be flexible and have longevity. Hopefully the A6-5600K will be enough to decode h.265/HEVC and/or VP9 when they become common. I wanted to avoid the trap people have landed in with their little APU boxes like E-350s. I don't mean to insult those awesome little boxes, but their uses are going to be going 'GOD DAMNIT. D:' in 12-24 months when newer stuff becomes popular. Anime fans have already seen this with h.264 10bit. I'm not certain if the A6-5600K will be enough to have this box last 4-7 years, when 4K material becomes more popular it might need some upgrades but it shouldn't need more than a replacement FM2 CPU or some sort of hardware accelerator going into one of the PCI-E slots. It should be a lot nicer than having to toss a while box out the window and start from scratch in a few years. She's a Linux fan so this'll be my first time building an OpenELEC box when I prefer Windows 7.
Everything has shipped and it should arrive Tuesday, I'll post some pics and comments when that happens.
