[lapapaz]

I have 1000$ and I need to build an HTPC that will:

- Play Blu-ray
- Handle the biggest 1080p videos I can throw at it, think 4GB h.264 "Planet Earth"
- The big one, run XBMC and Aeon with no lag and a decent-high framerate

The components I need:

- Mobo
- RAM
- CPU
- HDD (Atleast 1 TB)
- TV Tuner
- GFX Card
- Sound Card
- Case
- Power supply
- Blu-ray optical (reader only)
--------------------------------
Total: 1000$

I really appreciate the help guys, I'm having serious problems building the system myself.

[Ramses_tx]

What i im thinking in doing is waiting a few weeks, se how the Acer Revo, if it is a dedicated HTPC, you should be able to run XBMC under linux perfectly.

and you could use the extra money in a NAS or external blu-ray, etc.

[Crewone]

Any +/- 3Ghz capable Core 2 Duo will do, throw in an integrated 9400 chipset and 2Gb of RAM and you're set.

Get this board:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1087407

Add processor, 2Gb of ram and a nice HTPC case and you're set. You might want to consider going with a small (30G) SSD for silence if you store your media on a network.

If you do need to get internal storage, look for the silent HDD's from WD. Look here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article927-page6.html

GFX, Network & Sound .... use onboard.

Powersupply, look for a silent 80+ PSU. Maybe something from antec or nexus. Look here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article699-page1.html

I'm sorry, but I don't know much about TV tuners (useless with XBMC anyway) and blue ray drives.

[lapapaz]

Awesome help guys, much appreciated. After looking at it some more I've reconsidered the TV tuner and if I need one down the road I'll probably get a networked tuner.

You sure the 9400 will be able to handle Aeon in 1080p? I'm not insinuating that it won't, I'm just curious as the most recent card I have is an 8700 and I wasn't overly thrilled with it's performance.

Thanks again for all the feedback though, making my life a lot easier trying to get components together!

[D Unit]

Any +/- 3Ghz capable Core 2 Duo will do, throw in an integrated 9400 chipset and 2Gb of RAM and you're set.

Get this board:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1087407

Add processor, 2Gb of ram and a nice HTPC case and you're set. You might want to consider going with a small (30G) SSD for silence if you store your media on a network.

If you do need to get internal storage, look for the silent HDD's from WD. Look here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article927-page6.html

GFX, Network & Sound .... use onboard.

Powersupply, look for a silent 80+ PSU. Maybe something from antec or nexus. Look here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article699-page1.html

I'm sorry, but I don't know much about TV tuners (useless with XBMC anyway) and blue ray drives.

These specs above are pretty nice ingredients for XBMC. With that motherboard, you could probably buy an Intel e7400 and do a slight overclock to 3.0Ghz to save you some money rather than buying an e8400 or so. For a nice HTPC case, you might want to look at the Antec NSK2480 on sale at Frys right now for $90 which has received a lot of good reviews.

I am putting together a budget HTPC that should be able to handle Aeon with some tweaking if you don't mind taking this in as a hobby. With the above, I'm sure it will handle Aeon with little to no tweaking at all. With the specs below, others here have similar setups that can play Aeon for the most part with a little finesse. I'm not exactly sure what the "finesse" part is, but it's gonna be fun learning from trial and error...

• Asus M3N78-VM $70 shipped
  
• AMD 5050e - $60 at Frys
  
• Scythe Mini Ninja HSF (passive cooler) - $40 shipped at Newegg
  
• Antec 2480 - $90 at Frys
  
• spare 4GB Crucial Ballistix
  
• spare 80G 2.5" 5400rpm laptop drive
  
• spare DVD-rom
  

Total: $260

[JoWa]

cant find this, or do you use the scythe mini ninja and deaktivate the fan?, does the scythe still cool enough?

[D Unit]

cant find this, or do you use the scythe mini ninja and deaktivate the fan?, does the scythe still cool enough?

Picked up the trick from Hardforum.com and AVSforum.com. Apparently, a lot of HTPC builders commonly use the AMD 8200/8300 motherboards + AMD 4850e (or 5050e) CPU + Scythe Mini Ninja run passively without the fan. The 4850e and 5050e are low wattage, and hence, don't produce a lot of heat. To avoid confusion, I will be using the (2) 120mm case fans on the Antec NSK2480.

This combo works very well in HTPCs, but since XBMC does not leverage hardware acceleration, XBMC tends to run better on 3.0Ghz Intel chips. That being said, XBMC now supports external players. So I am hoping that I can run this AMD setup, and then use Media Player Classic as an external player to launch all my 1080p files. Although this setup "may" struggle playing 1080p files from applications like VLC, it will run it smoothly and without any hiccups using Media Player Classic.

Again, I'm no expert, but if someone could talk more about the external player feature, that would be great.

[Basti3k]

u see my new htpc in my sig.

[Crewone]

Awesome help guys, much appreciated. After looking at it some more I've reconsidered the TV tuner and if I need one down the road I'll probably get a networked tuner.

You sure the 9400 will be able to handle Aeon in 1080p? I'm not insinuating that it won't, I'm just curious as the most recent card I have is an 8700 and I wasn't overly thrilled with it's performance.

Thanks again for all the feedback though, making my life a lot easier trying to get components together!

I got one. I'm sure.

[D Unit]

I don't mean to mislead anybody, but I think these quotes say it all it better than I can...

Quote:
Originally Posted by SirBC View Post
I'm in the process of building a new HTPC and want to use the Linux +VDPAU for hardware decoding, which means I can get away with a low-end CPU.

I'm wondering though if Stark would benefit from the HW decoding, or would the low-end CPU kill skin performance?

-Dave
VDPAU is for video. won't do a thing to help the skins performance. I haven't heard about how Stark performs in Linux, maybe it's less intensive and you don't need as much juice. If what I'm gathering is correct Stark benefits more from a dececent video card than the CPU power.

[lapapaz]

Would a Core 2 Quad be better than a Duo for my needs?

[JoWa]

a quick question, cause we are talking about cpu fans here
anyone knows a !quite! cpu fan for a E7300?

[onesojourner]

a faster dual core is better in this application.

[D Unit]

a quick question, cause we are talking about cpu fans here
anyone knows a !quite! cpu fan for a E7300?

I think you're limiting factor is going to be the case you install it in. If you're going to install it in a regular PC case, then the Thermalright True 120 is a popular choice. If not, you better make sure you consider your case's dimensions first. For HTPC's, the Scythe Mini Ninja is very popular too.