Cheapest low-power XBMC, not caring about size or noise?
#1
Hi

New to the forum but long time XBMC user. I have been using Atom/ION boxes running OpenELEC until now and they were good machines, but one has just died. I expect I can hack something together to get it working again but I decided I would like to migrate to something a bit more serviceable, and a bit of future-proofing would be good, so I’m looking for hardware recommendations for a new XBMC box.

I’ve read a load of the recent recommendations here and they seem to be mostly very small form-factor (NUC, mini-ITX) but I am going to be installing this in an unfinished part of the basement and feeding HDMI and an IR extender through the wall into the TV room, so I don’t want to pay a premium for very small, very sexy, or even very quiet.

Must have:
Ability to play mkv up to 1080p and handle streaming plugins
Very slick UI (so I don’t want to consider Raspberry Pi or Android for now)
Ability to switch on and off from Logitech Harmony remote or low power consumption in standby, or both
Low price (closer to $100 than $150 if possible, not counting USB boot stick as I already have spares)

Nice to have:
Ability to have some home automation integration (never played with this but may want to. just bought a VeraLite)
Powerful enough for DVR features (not played with this for a couple of years so may or may not ever use it again)
Standard form factor like micro-ATX or mini-ITX so I can swap components out in future if I want to
HD audio – no idea if I want this or not. I don’t have any such media at the moment though.

Don’t care about:
Form factor of the HTPC, as it will be in a different room to the TV
Noise, for the same reason
Playing anime, 3D, games
USB3, optical drive, wifi (I play everything from the network which will be wired)

I wonder if mini-ITX will be the best option anyway for power consumption but I’d appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks in advance
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#2
ECS itx board - $50 on amazon
Celeron G1610 - $43 on amazon
2 GB Ram - $25
Cheapest computer case with PSU - $30-40

Roughly $150.

That's probably as cheap as it gets for a desktop class HTPC. You could always save $10-20 and find the celeron 847 or 1007 board.
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#3
Foxconn nT-i2847 Intel NM70 1 x 204Pin Intel HD Graphics Integrated by CPU Mini / Booksize Barebone System $149.99

Yes:
Ability to play mkv up to 1080p and handle streaming plugins
Very slick UI (so I don’t want to consider Raspberry Pi or Android for now)
Low price (closer to $100 than $150 if possible, not counting USB boot stick as I already have spares)
Powerful enough for DVR features (not played with this for a couple of years so may or may not ever use it again)
HD audio – no idea if I want this or not. I don’t have any such media at the moment though.
Low power consumption in standby

No:
Standard form factor like micro-ATX or mini-ITX so I can swap components out in future if I want to (CPU is embedded)

Unsure:
Ability to switch on and off from Logitech Harmony remote (this needs to be done independent of the PC since you need a IR receiver)
Ability to have some home automation integration (never played with this but may want to. just bought a VeraLite)

You'll want to run OpenELEC on it for best results. If you want to run Windows, the G1610 system is a better idea.
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#4
Those are two good suggestions, thank you. So I could go either way for the same money. Dougie, what would that Foxconn offer as advantages over cwide's suggestion? I can see it's smaller but that isn't important to me. I wonder if the power consumption in idle would be lower?

It's a Foxconn NT-330i that just died on me so I'm reluctant to go with the same non-fixable architecture, but with it looking the same the wife wouldn't notice me spending the money Smile

(actually wouldn't the Foxconn need extra money for RAM?)
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#5
It wouldn't offer any advantage though I would say it's not as easy as it seems to find a decent $30-40 case with a power supply. You can find plenty with a crappy inefficient power supply though.
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#6
Dougie, I found that you are quite right. After scratching my head for too long about what case/PSU combination to get for the Mini-ITX option, reading reviews of the cheaper ones, not being sure what power I needed and so on I decided to just go for the easy option and swap out for the newer version of the Foxconn box like I already had.
Thanks
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#7
Hi! I hope you don't mind if I reuse the thread for similar purpose.

I've recently retrieved an old PC from my parents to release more space from their room. So I'm thinking of transforming it into my firsrt ever HTPC. Could anyone give me some pointers to optimize the machine's performance please? It has 1GB DDR2 RAM and Pentium e5400 2,7Ghz with onboard VGA, Windows 7 SP1. I'd use it as full time HTPC, nothing else is installed except Chrome, Winrar, a torrent client, XBMC and some xbmc supports like XBNE, Sickbeard. XBMC navigation is smooth but the time to update the library is long, switching between explorer windows (to do some file, folder copy/paste) lag though not horribly.

I think I have 2 options, either adding another GB of RAM or installing an external VGA on the available PCIE 16x 1.0 (which will nicely offer some HDMI outputs). Not sure which serves better though and I hope to keep the cost at minimum (less than $50).

Thanks!
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#8
I would do both if you can. Add in a 2GB stick to get up to 3GB RAM and throw in a Nvidia GT610 or AMD HD6450 video card.
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#9
(2013-09-25, 14:04)naeco Wrote: Hi! I hope you don't mind if I reuse the thread for similar purpose.

I've recently retrieved an old PC from my parents to release more space from their room. So I'm thinking of transforming it into my firsrt ever HTPC. Could anyone give me some pointers to optimize the machine's performance please? It has 1GB DDR2 RAM and Pentium e5400 2,7Ghz with onboard VGA, Windows 7 SP1. I'd use it as full time HTPC, nothing else is installed except Chrome, Winrar, a torrent client, XBMC and some xbmc supports like XBNE, Sickbeard. XBMC navigation is smooth but the time to update the library is long, switching between explorer windows (to do some file, folder copy/paste) lag though not horribly.

I think I have 2 options, either adding another GB of RAM or installing an external VGA on the available PCIE 16x 1.0 (which will nicely offer some HDMI outputs). Not sure which serves better though and I hope to keep the cost at minimum (less than $50).

Thanks!

I would add a video card at minimum. Any modern video card with an HDMI port should be good enough for 1080p videos. Since you are on Windows 7 I would also add some ram. Can't imagine that not taking you over $50 though. If all you want is better playback then just the video card should do it... but I doubt much is going to help your speed. Even the Celeron 847 is faster than that processor.

Maybe try adding a video card and installing Openelec? (unless you need the browser)
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#10
Hi!

Thanks for the inputs!

The browser is not a must for me. So far, I only use it for Sickbeard and Couchpotato. If Openelec can offer some alternative, I'd seriously consider it. I've also just heard of XBMC Live. Between that and Openelec, which one offer good performance given the hardware state?

I've tried playing some movies/TV shows and the playback is smooth. Most of my video are only x264 720p or lower resolution though.
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#11
http://wiki.openelec.tv/index.php?title=...nzbd-Suite

Openelec will run much better on low power machines as long as your hardware is supported. Also 1 GB ram is enough.

Give it a try from a USB stick before wiping your Windows install. Or just keep both and boot to Windows when you want a browser.

If going Openelec I would go with Nvidia GT610.
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