[baron]

Hey all,

Im building a Linux HTPC and im getting confused on some parts i need.

The motherboard has to fit in a silverstone GD04b case (mATX)

Im trying to get a motherboard with integrated graphics to reduce heat and energy. But from what ive read, the new intel i3 series chips are not working very well. I was trying to get hold of a older Nvidia 9300 board, seeing at they have very good reviews. But are impossible to find now.
So i was thinking of getting a cheap am3 board and installing a geforce 8400 (no fan). I was considering a GT210 or GT220 as theyre newer and similar prices, but some threads on here are saying theyre a pain.

Im not going for a ION system as the cpu isnt fast enough and flash will suffer (along with other things).

Im after something to fill these roles

1. Play everything except blueray discs
2. File server
3. SSH access (from work)
4. Sabnzbd server
5. Silent when no activity.

Can anyone make any suggestions?

Cheers

[baron]

Heres something i just priced up. what do u guys think

Motherboard MSI GF615M-P33 GeForce 6150SE Socket AM3 VGA 8 channel Audio mATX Motherboard £35.28
CPU AMD Athlon II X2 235e 2.7GHz Socket AM3 2MB Cache Energy Efficient Retail Box Processor £46.74
Heatsink + Fan Silverstone NT01-E Fanless Heatpipe Cooler for LGA775 & AMD 754/939/940/AM2 Hi-End £28.14
Memory Crucial 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz/PC3-10600 Memory Kit CL9 1.5V £72.16
HDD Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB Hard Drive SATAII 5400rpm 32MB Cache - OEM £59.56
Video 512MB Palit/XpertVision 9500 GT Super, 800MHz GDDR2, GPU 550 MHz, Shader 1350 MHz, 32 Cores £41.01
Case Silverstone Grandia GD04B, Black, HTPC/Desktop, Micro ATX, w/o PSU £71.99
PSU Coolermaster Silent Pro 500W Modular PSU £68.51


total £423.39

[Hannes The Hun]

I was considering a GT210 or GT220 as theyre newer and similar prices, but some threads on here are saying theyre a pain.

well, they are not really easy to get working at the moment because of alsa 10.23 but there's some excellent tutorials out there, so I wouldn't describe it as "a pain". these cards are excellent choices for linux-XBMC and VDPAU.
btw you only need newest alsa for these cards ATM when you're planning to output audio via HDMI. my best guess would be that 10.23 will be integrated in the next live distro anyways.

independent of that, your hardware choice looks really good to me, but *most* if not all of what you are planning to do with the system should also be doable with an 330 Ion mainboard and 2GB of RAM. the money you save there could be invested in a value SSD such as the intel 40GB, makes also a nice performance boost and is of course completely silent.

[poofyhairguy]

Build looks good.

[baron]

well, they are not really easy to get working at the moment because of alsa 10.23 but there's some excellent tutorials out there, so I wouldn't describe it as "a pain". these cards are excellent choices for linux-XBMC and VDPAU.
btw you only need newest alsa for these cards ATM when you're planning to output audio via HDMI. my best guess would be that 10.23 will be integrated in the next live distro anyways.

independent of that, your hardware choice looks really good to me, but *most* if not all of what you are planning to do with the system should also be doable with an 330 Ion mainboard and 2GB of RAM. the money you save there could be invested in a value SSD such as the intel 40GB, makes also a nice performance boost and is of course completely silent.

Hi there hannes,

I have a acer revo 3610 in my bedroom and I hate having to boot windows 7 inorder to play the flash based HD stuff i.e. iplayer.

I also download using sabnzdb sometimes while watching a mkv, and the revo runs like a dog, especially while par or decompressing. My intel q6600 system works under this sort of pressure easily. Believe it or not but when i download the HDD goes nuts on my revo as i have 50mbit broadband.

I was very close to buying a asrock 330ht, but the laggy feel to web browsing in windows and the poor flash performace (when not using gpu) i.e. farmville (not me). I decided to build a custom job.

Im have tried the live version of xbmc and really liked it, the problem is really flash on a atom chipset for me. I want to do more than watch movies.

[cowfodder]

baron,

Have you tried the newer flash beta version? I don't really care about flash myself, but a lot of people are reporting better performance with it.

[ubuntuf4n]

Its already final (10.1 from adobe).

[baron]

Its already final (10.1 from adobe).

i was getting mixed results when searching labs.adobe.com
there latest news still talks about rc6 of 10.1

but yet there download page offers 10.1 as a full release.

I also read that linux 10.1 did not have Hardware acceleration.

can any1 confirm if it does are it doesnt.

im finding the entire flash thing annoying

[poofyhairguy]

Only the Windows 10.1 and the OSX Gala releases of Flash feature real hardware acceleration.

[baron]

Only the Windows 10.1 and the OSX Gala releases of Flash feature real hardware acceleration.

cheers poofyhairguy.

Seems the only way to guarantee everything will work (now and in the future) is to make sure you have enough raw grunt.