Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

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deksawyer
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Location: Fife, Scotland
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Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

Post by deksawyer » Thu Oct 31, 2013 8:56 am

Impatience has gotten the better of me waiting on some Thin ITX boards, so I've just ordered this lot:
I built this recently, to replace my skt775 Intel HTPC. Was going to go fanless, but at the time, there was no thin ITX 1150 boards available (there are a few now). Here's what I ended up with and a wee build log to go with it:

Intel i3 4330
Asus H87I-Plus
Corsair Vengeance black C9 2x4GB
Skythe Big Shuriken Rev.B
Streacom FC7
picoPSU-160-XT PSU & 84w power brick

I already have a 64GB Crucial M4 SSD so I'll use that. I don't intend to fit an optical drive, so I'll fasten the SSD to the front of the case somehow. That'll give me room to fit the Big Shuriken (If I've done my maths correctly, that'll fit in the case - fingers crossed).

Parts should be here this week sometime, so photo's and build report then. I'm going to try openelec first, and if I don't get on with it, i'll try XBMCBuntu.

cheers

D.

deksawyer
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Location: Fife, Scotland
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Re: Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

Post by deksawyer » Thu Oct 31, 2013 9:05 am

Core components added to the motherboard. This is my first ITX system - it's tiny!! As you can see from the pics, I had a little helper (who kept trying to eat the fan cable).

ISSUES.

I had to remove some of the foam on the Big Shuriken backplate as it was going to interfere with some components. Sharp knife - job done. It's going to be a tight fit for the cooler inside the case and I actually think it's not going to fit now. Find out when the case arrives.

Here's some pics:

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I'll be firing this up when the case arrives...........

D.

deksawyer
Posts: 48
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2006 2:33 pm
Location: Fife, Scotland
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Re: Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

Post by deksawyer » Thu Oct 31, 2013 9:08 am

I couldn't resist last night when the wife went to bed - placed the board on a box and plugged it all in.

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Installed openelec, which was a bit of a disaster - no audio at first. Managed to sort that somehow then it would freeze when I selected to play any video (from server).

Installed XBMCBuntu, audio worked straight away, well everything apart from HD Audio from full fat BD rips. I've been reading that I might need to upgrade the kernel, but I'm not too sure. MCE remote/keyboard isn't working either, but I've been reading about that as well. Time to tinker tonight......

cheers

D.

deksawyer
Posts: 48
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2006 2:33 pm
Location: Fife, Scotland
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Re: Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

Post by deksawyer » Thu Oct 31, 2013 9:13 am

Case arrived this afternoon and the good news is the CPU cooler fits! Case is a Streacom FC7 Evo and was bought from ebay for £39 and you might notice, it doesn't have any front usb ports. I prefer the cleaner look, but as it's going to be in a cupboard it's no big deal. Case is nice and it went together in no time.

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Fitted an Arctic Cooling F9 CO 92mm PWM fan as an exhaust to the side of the case. There's a bracket for an 80mm fan inside which uses 2 screws to hold the fan in - I just used one screw and the case lid pressing down on top of the fan to hold it secure.

Set it up as silent in the bios and it's dropped my idle temps by around 10˚C and the Prime95 Blend test by around 8˚C. Up close the fan motor has a faint ticking noise when running so slow, but I can't hear it with the door closed on my cabinet. I hear a very quiet whoosh when it's stress testing in a silent room once the fans have ramped up a bit. Not very scientific I know, but it works for me......

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Using fully patched Win7 64bit with Intel drivers 15.31.17.64.3257 here are some temperature/power observations.

Idle, sitting in desktop it's hovering in the low 21w area.

1080p Bluray rip playback is ~ 23w

Standby is 3.1w

Ide temp is around 32˚C

Prime95 Large FTT's - 72.3w @ 79˚C

OCCT default test is ~ 86w @ 84˚C

IntelBurnTest Very High - 87.5w @ 91˚C

Intel ETU CPU test - ~ 83w @ 85˚C

1080p h264 Bluray rip played over network is around 36˚C in both XBMC and MPC-HC

CPU usage in XBMC is between 3% - 7% and MPC-HC is between 1% - 4% (both with DXVA2 enabled)

CA_Steve
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Re: Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

Post by CA_Steve » Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:33 am

Very pretty. For grins, you might run the same tests after it's been heat-soaking in the cupboard for a while...just to see if there's a significant rise in temp.

deksawyer
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Re: Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

Post by deksawyer » Thu Oct 31, 2013 6:25 pm

Yeah, I've done that. Heat build up isn't an issue.

There's a 1" gap all the way around the rear of the cabinet before it meets the cabinets behind it and it's completely open. Here's a late night pic, maybe you'll see from that:

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There's also 2 120mm fans drawing air into the cabinet directly beneath my AV Amp (yes, I did cut 2 big holes into the base of my new Ikea cabinets - and 2 under the PS3 in the cabinet to the left!!). Remember, I live in central Scotland, a place where temps never get too high, although we did have a great (and long) summer for a change.

Currently running the Intel Burn Test [very high] for almost 15 minutes and cpu temp as reported by Core Temp is 58 Degrees C. You can hear the fans ramping up under load. Playing movies with DXVA/DXVA2 is much less stressful as well as much quieter, so I have no fear of burning anything out. This PC will only be on when watching movies in XBMC.

cheers

D.

CA_Steve
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Re: Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Nov 01, 2013 12:58 pm

Excellent.

cyberspyder
Posts: 259
Joined: Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:58 pm
Location: Markham, Canada

Re: Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

Post by cyberspyder » Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:15 pm

Ikea Besta cabinets? Mine is nearly identical, except I adapted the doors into tall drawer fronts.

watts_happening
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:28 pm
Location: Northern California

Re: Haswell i3 4330 Streacom HTPC

Post by watts_happening » Tue Nov 05, 2013 3:11 pm

Nice build. You can always tell who has a cat because at a certain point they start showing up in the pictures like they suddenly realized something exciting was happening. :-)

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