I’m about to build a home theatre PC (HTPC) that’s to be ideally less than a thousand dollars Australian. So here are the requirements:
- Small form factor (i.e. mini-ITX)
- Quiet
- Must play HD videos
- Must be able to record videos such that it can replace the TV Tuner / DVD recorder unit.
- Receives DVB-T
Looking around at what’s available, there doesn’t seem to be too many choices which would obviously make the decisions easier.
But there is one basic question that needs to be answered: The age old question of do I want to go with Intel, or AMD? (And there’s also VIA). So there’s the typical old Socket 775 Intel boards, AMD boards on the 6 series chipset, and VIA’s EPIA. Having had a chat to Richard, he suggested a build based on an AMD 7 series chipset, which sports quite a decent onboard Radeon HD graphics. reviews are OK too. Why not Intel’s Atom? Well it’s a little limited in power – I was hoping for something that’s a bit faster than 1.6(6) GHz. The AMD is a socket based motherboard, and also meant that I could upgrade the CPU if needed (although that never happens).
Why not Intel S775? Because they come with Intel Graphics. Why not the brand new Nvidia Ion chipset? It looks really good, especially that Zotac board. But unfortunately it didn’t come with a PCI Express slot which I would need for the TV card.
The final specs after the break!
- Aywun/Apex MI-100 Mini-ITX Cube Case
- Silverstone NT07-AM2 Low Profile Aluminium Heatsink
- J&W 780G-SP128MB Mini-ITX Motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64X2 Socket AM2 5050e (2.6GHZ)
- 2x2GB DDR2-800 SODIMM (Generic would do)
- Samsung HD103UJ 1TB SATA2 7200 32MB Hard Disk
- Pioneer BDC-S02BK Blu-Ray Combo Drive
- Leadtek PxDTV2300H
You’ll want to be careful with mini-ITX cases, particularly their power supplies. The small form often means there is very little room for heat to escape, resulting in very fast spinning, very noisy fan. microATX will give you a lot more flexibility – it just depends on the space requirements.
ATI cards seem to be the cream of the crop (onboard or discrete) and work fantastically with the inbuilt Win7 codecs
Yeah apparently there isn’t even a case fan. I wonder how well the PSU fan handles case ventilation. Richard’s also recommended picoPSU, but we’ll see how it goes.
Can you email me with any suggestions when you get the setup done, I am looking to build my own computer but I am l am thinking of buying a second hand pc (P4?).
What kind of computer do you want to build?