[Jepster]

Hi guys,

I am currently building a relatively powerfull HTPC, that I can use for both 3D streaming, 4k streaming and gaming.

I am hooking my HTPC up with my LED TV, for Home theatre purpose.

For gaming purpose, I thought about buying a monitor and a 5m HDMI cable, so I can put up a monitor etc on my dining table, whenever gaming (Yes I'm single )

I believe that I will buy one of the new Haswell processors, that is supplying HD 4600. should be enough for some light gaming at least.

So, if hooking up both a LED TV and a Monitor, to my HTPC, what would your suggestion be? A HDMI splitter? A Graphic cards with 2 HDMI outputs?

Please let me know your thoughts.

thanks

[jammyb]

An i3 NUC with dual HDMI

[Jepster]

That one has 1 displayport and 1 HDMI I believe. Not sure what the difference is though.

[jammyb]

They do more than one i3 NUC mate.

i3 with HDMI and display port. No Ethernet.
i3 with 2x HDMI and Ethernet. No display port.

Click the NUC wiki link in my sig.

[Jepster]

I see. not Haswell though, which I would very much prefer. No H87 motherboards are supporting 2 HDMI outputs?? I prefer to build it myself, as i can then upgrade it later on.

Or maybe a HDMI switch will do it? I would never run both my TV and my Monitor anyways. will be either or.

[gfb107]

Mini displayport to HDMI cable

[Jepster]

Found a Micro-ITX mobo with Dual HDMI.

GIGABYTE GA-H87N

That should do the job I believe?

[DrDaxxy]

No reason to switch motherboards just because one happens to have two HDMI ports. You can use a DP-to-HDMI cable (as shown above) or, if your monitor has one, just plug it straight into the DisplayPort
(That said, sure, the GA-H87N will work)

For light gaming, expect to fluently run modern games in full resolution only at low settings (except really undemanding games like League of Legends or less). And don't take a faster/more expensive CPU to improve integrated GPU performance, if you're considering that, you should spend the money on a low-end graphics card instead. Even Haswell doesn't reach the performance of the lowliest of dedicated graphics.
If you still want to go with that, be sure to get fast RAM, as it's shared by the integrated GPU and RAM speed has been shown to make a difference.

[Jepster]

Thanks a lot DrDaxxy,

Ok, I see. maybe I should get a dedicated graphic card at some stage.. Try to take a look at this build and let me know what you think. I would always be able to upgrade that one, and with this mobo I can put in some faster rams, as you can see.

Any inputs, please let me know :-)

[Jepster]

By the way, just tried to find a low profile graphic card with either 2xHDMI or 1xDisplay Port and 1xHDMI , of a newer date. Any suggestions?

[DrDaxxy]

Note the i5-4570 is only rated for 1333/1600mhz RAM. As far as I know, this means you'd need to do some overclocking/overvolting to utilise faster RAM, which means you need an unlocked CPU (but I may very well be wrong, I've never attempted anything like that and only just read up on it).
And for HTPC duties, this is overkill. An i5 will have no benefits for media playback, only gaming.

Is there any reason you're going for a motherboard this expensive? Is it to support faster RAM? Otherwise, a sub-$100 board should do the job just as well.

Your build doesn't include an optical drive or operating system - I assume you have one you can install from a flash drive?

And lastly, your PSU has more power than you'll need. Even with a GPU, about 450W should be more than enough I reckon.

The fastest you can get in terms of low profile cards is a Radeon HD7750 right now, for a bit over $100. It's still significantly faster than the Intel HD4600 on even a top i7.

Just how light are your gaming requirements?
Do you actually want to output 4K (or, in general, anything above 1080p)?

For optimizing gaming performance, I'd suggest dropping down to a budget motherboard, 1600mhz RAM, a lower-rated PSU, using a case that supports full-size graphics cards and putting a midrange gaming card in there (something among the lines of an R7 260X). You could replace the i5 with an i3 as well, the performance difference shouldn't be massive.

Even if you're unwilling to get a bigger case, an i3 with an HD7750, slower RAM, a budget motherboard and a better-fit PSU should give you better gaming performance than your build, at about the same price. Though I'm not sure whether the outputs on those (usually 1x HDMI, 1x DVI) would fit your resolution requirements - I don't know if they go above 1080p (and whether you need that ).