Newbie here, building a HTPC, any advice??????

nitram_tpr · Post by **nitram_tpr** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:40 am

Hi all, newbie to the site, but not a newbie to PC builds.
I am in the process of putting together a list of part for a HTPC, I want a nice quiet one as it is going to be sitting in my Hi-Fi rack and will be on for the majority of the time.
So here we go, my list of bits, if anyone has a better suggestion please feel free

Case: Either Antec Fusion V2 or Silverstone Grandia GD01
MB: Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R, this is one of the few Matx boards with an E-Sata connector on the back.
CPU: E6750
HSF: Either Scythe Ninja-CU Full Copper Heatsink with Quiet Fan or Thermalright HR-01 with a Scythe S-Flex 120mm fan. (will these fit in my case choices?)
PSU: Seasonic S12 500w or M12 500w modular.
Mem: 4gig OCZ PC-6400 CL4 (4 x 1gig)
HD's: 2 x Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB. Not raided
GFX: MSI NX8800GT Zilent 512MB

I haven't chosen an audio card as i am hoping that the onboard will be suitable. I have a DD5.1 amp that will be providing the sound to my surround speakers, so I'll be pushing the audio straight out of the mobo into the amp. Is this O.K or should I get a soundcard with an optical output? My current standalone DVD player is connected to the amp via optical.

I am a little confused as to the Tv card to get, I want to use this machine as a PVR so will be getting Vista Ultimate (32bit or 64, haven't decided!).
So can someone recommend me a dual channel digital freeview capable card please?
In the past I have only ever used a Hauppauge card, are these still good? I'd like it internal so no USB. Thanks.

Also does the EPG on Vista Ultimate work O.K?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance,

Martin

Deiz · Post by **Deiz** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:33 am

It appears the GD-01 is taller - It's 17cm, while the Fusion is 14cm.

The HR-01 and Ninja appear to be roughly 16cm tall each, so they'd definitely not fit in the Fusion, but might fight in the GD-01.

If I were you, I'd opt for a shorter heatsink like the Mini Ninja or SI-128. (Preferably the latter because you can mount a 120mm fan on it, while the Mini Ninja can only use 80mm fans.)

Your parts selection is very good - Though I'd go with OCZ's 4GB kit that consists of 2x2GB sticks at 5-4-4-15, because I believe it's substantially cheaper than the 4x1GB 4-5-4-18 kit.

antifro · Post by **antifro** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 10:31 am

Yeah I agree w/ Deiz's measurements. I own an Antec 2400 (the oriogional case), and can tell you for sure that the ninja will NOT fit. Check out for some blow down HSF solutions from thermalright, this will aslo help cool your mosfets. I dont think you'll be overclocking this system, so it should be cool (enough) even with a low speed fan.

sjoukew · Post by **sjoukew** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:19 pm

With 4gb ram you can only use +/- 3gb with vista 32 bit, this is depending on the hardware used. The memory address range from the 3+/- 3gb to 4gb range will be used for memory mapped IO for your hardware.
When you want to use more then 3gb ram, you need vista 64 bit. Vista 64bit will run perfectly, if you have drivers for it, which are available for almost any decent hardware.
EPG on vista works the same as on xp mce. As long as the information from the epg corresponds to what is broadcasted in reality, it works nice

I think Vista Home Premium will be enough for you, worth considering and saving money.
Vista and XP MCE are supporting multiple tv-tuners, so you can record / see 2channels at the same time. Hauppauge pvr 500 has 2 tuners on 1 board

, works great.

nitram_tpr · Post by **nitram_tpr** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:16 am

Cheers guys, excellent advice.
I will be using the system for occasional gaming so a single 8800GT and the E6750 should be more than adequate for even Crysis (hopefully

)
I thought I was being a tad optimistic for the coolers I had chosen.
I'm veering towards the GD-01, even though it is quite a large unit I like the look of it. Also it takes ATX mobo's so I' might change to a mobo with SPDIF on-board.

The 4gig Kit is a fair bit cheaper too, which is nice

I'm also thinking about a Raid 5 Array with 4x500gig drives, will this add much to the noise? Especially considering I was looking at 2 anyways.

I know about the 3gig(ish) limit with Vista 32, that's why I thought about 64.
I thought it was only ultimate that was a Media Centre edition. Good news about Home Premium, save me a few pennies.

Now I've just got to get authorisation from her indoors to release the funds

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:31 am

nitram_tpr wrote:I'm also thinking about a Raid 5 Array with 4x500gig drives, will this add much to the noise? Especially considering I was looking at 2 anyways.

Four drives will be twice as loud as two! Looking at the specs I'd hazard a guess they'd dominate the noise signature. They could be very intrusive if not suspended. Do you need RAID5? Come to think of it why go for 2x500 in the first place, 1x1TB will be quieter (most likely!).

Deiz · Post by **Deiz** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:27 am

nitram_tpr wrote:I'm also thinking about a Raid 5 Array with 4x500gig drives, will this add much to the noise? Especially considering I was looking at 2 anyways.

A somewhat accurate estimate: Two drives should be about 30% louder than one, three drives should be 50% louder, and four drives should be 60% louder than one.

(For more accurate math, see here.)

So there's a rather insignificant benefit to going with three 750GB drives instead of four 500GB drives, but a a decent benefit to dropping down to two.

I think RAID-5 may be a bad idea here, because accessing large files will cause multiple drives to seek, while having, say, three 500GB drives (Or two 750GB drives) operating independently will make sure there's only one drive seeking at any given time.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:53 am

Deiz wrote: A somewhat accurate estimate: Two drives should be about 30% louder than one, three drives should be 50% louder, and four drives should be 60% louder than one.

(For more accurate math, see here.)

Yes apologies for my previous glib response.

In psychoacoustic terms it is indeed correct that two drives are perceived to be 30% louder than two, presuming they're white noise emitters. Anybody care to do the same estimation for two tonal sources of nearly-but-not-quite-the-same fundamental frequency?

nitram_tpr · Post by **nitram_tpr** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 8:21 am

The reason I am thinking of a RAID 5 array is for security of the data.
I'd like to run this machine for a while and if a drive fails I'd like to be able to keep the data.
I'd hate to have a single 1TB drive and then have it fail in 3-4 years time.

JLee · Post by **JLee** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 8:42 am

A compromise would be to use 2x1TB drives in mirror, whatever raid number that is.

Deiz · Post by **Deiz** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 8:52 am

JLee wrote:A compromise would be to use 2x1TB drives in mirror, whatever raid number that is.

That's RAID 1. The problem, I think, with RAID 1 is that you're basically throwing away half of your drives, in terms of storage space, whereas with three drives in RAID 5, you're only losing a third.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 9:26 am

Deiz wrote:The problem, I think, with RAID 1 is that you're basically throwing away half of your drives, in terms of storage space, whereas with three drives in RAID 5, you're only losing a third.

That's all just psychology though. A logical (and very ridiculous!) extension of that is that it's better to run 13x80GB drives because then you're only losing 7%. At some point there's a line to be drawn

The data an on HTPC shouldn't change very frequently anyway. Might be better (from a noise perspective) to run 2x1TB drives and have one powered down most of the time, and just woken once a day at 3am to be synced with the primary drive.

Deiz · Post by **Deiz** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 10:20 am

nutball wrote:That's all just psychology though. A logical (and very ridiculous!) extension of that is that it's better to run 13x80GB drives because then you're only losing 7%. At some point there's a line to be drawn

The data an on HTPC shouldn't change very frequently anyway. Might be better (from a noise perspective) to run 2x1TB drives and have one powered down most of the time, and just woken once a day at 3am to be synced with the primary drive.

Oh, for sure, if you're willing to spend the money, the less drives, the better. (For both noise and failure rates.)

I, however, am obsessed with cost/GB.

Two 1TB Seagates from Newegg ($270 each) in RAID 1 is $0.54/GB, as opposed to three 500GB Seagates ($120 each) in RAID 5 for $0.36/GB.

A penny pinched is a sign of a real tightwad.

Oh, for absurdity's sake we'll try 13 x 80GB: $44 each. $0.59/GB for the RAID 5 array.. Alarmingly, significantly worse than 1TB drives. Value:Dollar has certainly passed the old 80GB drives by.

sjoukew · Post by **sjoukew** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:49 am

Raid 5 sounds nice, it is cool, but it ain't fast in all benchmarks. Also if you build it with an onboard raid controller, it works, but it is really not fast, more in the "slow" region sometimes. But it can handle one disk failure

nitram_tpr · Post by **nitram_tpr** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 3:34 am

I wouldn't use Raid 1. It's a waste of a drive, the best option for speed / security of data is a 1+0, but you are only getting 2 gig's worth of storage for the cost of 4gigs worth of drives.

I have done a search and there is a good article on Tomshardware about Raid scaling (0, 1, 0+1, 5 and 6).
It looks like the only real performace hit you get with Raid 5 over a single disk is the access times.
Data reading and writing has a much better bandwidth.
Looking at the results a Raid 5 array with 3 or 4 drives looks ideal for what I am after. 4 x 500gig drives will be a possibility

nitram_tpr · Post by **nitram_tpr** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 3:34 am

Ooops, here is the link to tomshardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/07/ ... ng_charts/