Looking for HTPC Build Suggestions

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illogic
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:45 pm

Looking for HTPC Build Suggestions

Post by illogic » Wed Sep 26, 2012 12:03 am

Hi Everyone,

Been trying to take in as much info the past few days through a handful of forums, pretty overwhelming considering i'm a semi-idiot when it comes to hardware. hoping to get some suggestions from this community here!

Requirements:
  • Small form factor (as small as possible), black/dark metallic in color
    Silent (very important)
    No gaming, no live tv, no optical drive
    Will be running a suite of usenet applications (therefore want it powerful enough to be able to handle the extraction and par file repairs without compromising video/music playback)
    Will be used to watch common formats up to 1080p of movies/tv shows/music (ideally have connectors to have choice whether or not to connect to amp)
    Be able to handle streaming video
    Will be running a internal harddrive and potentially linking to NAS in future
Budgets: No budget in mind per se, but more so the cheapest possible given the requirements

Thanks guys, looking forward to your advice

cheers,

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Looking for HTPC Build Suggestions

Post by Abula » Wed Sep 26, 2012 5:52 am

Well if you value to much it to be silent, then build around something like HDPLEX H3.SODD Fanless Mini-ITX HTPC Case

If its too expensive, and willing to have at least one fan (in this case only the cpu fan), then consider Antec Mini-ITX Case ISK110-VESA, it can fit 2x 2.5 hdds in the bottom.

The rest of the components, probably chose them depending on your personal needs and specific uses.

illogic
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: Looking for HTPC Build Suggestions

Post by illogic » Thu Sep 27, 2012 8:12 pm

thanks!

any favorites on specific parts that you like given my needs?

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Looking for HTPC Build Suggestions

Post by Abula » Fri Sep 28, 2012 7:25 am

illogic wrote:any favorites on specific parts that you like given my needs?
Lets try to be more specific.
illogic wrote:Small form factor (as small as possible), black/dark metallic in color
Silent (very important)
No gaming, no live tv, no optical drive
I would probably go with the Antec 110, specially since you want as cheap as possible and small factor, and you dont have a need for optical. But if complete silence is more important, then H3 would be my pick, but at 4x the price.

illogic wrote:Will be running a suite of usenet applications (therefore want it powerful enough to be able to handle the extraction and par file repairs without compromising video/music playback)
Will be used to watch common formats up to 1080p of movies/tv shows/music (ideally have connectors to have choice whether or not to connect to amp)
Depends on what and how, all Sandy Bridge and Ivy bridge built in gpu, can handle 1080p playback, so my suggestion is to with Ivy Bridge and chose depending on the load that other apps you using. For pure playback and on a cheap setup, i would just go with Intel Celeron G530, can be bought for $50 and an Intel mobo, H61 or H77 mITX, depending on how much you want to spend, and what outputs you need.
illogic wrote:Be able to handle streaming video[/list]
Here is probably the most important thing you need to decide, live encoding/decoding can take a lot of cpu, depending on the software and how many at the same time. Check the software you will be using and decide on the amounts of streams you will have running at the same time to decide on what CPU will be best for your needs.

Personally i find best to build cheap htpc like H61 mobo + G530, and have the server be a pure storage center and let the htpcs do the rendering. But this is up to each and your needs.

boost
Posts: 661
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 10:29 am
Location: de_DE

Re: Looking for HTPC Build Suggestions

Post by boost » Tue Oct 02, 2012 11:28 pm

Smallest form factor with sensible price/performance ration is ITX.
As stated above the combination of H61 board and G530 CPU is the best value.
illogic wrote:Will be running a internal harddrive and potentially linking to NAS in future
What size hard drive?
3.5" drives are cheaper per TB, but louder than 2.5" drives. The largest 3.5" drive is 4TB, the largest 2.5" drive is 2TB in15mm height and 1TB in 9.5mm height. Very small cases only have room for 2.5" drives.
illogic wrote:Will be used to watch common formats up to 1080p of movies/tv shows/music (ideally have connectors to have choice whether or not to connect to amp)
Which connectors do you need, which do you want?
Most ITX H61 boards have HDMI and DVI connectors, except for Intel. I found two ITX boards with dual HDMI connectors, Gigabyte GA-H77N-WIFI and Zotac Z77-ITX WiFi. both have dual Lan and WIFI, Gigabyte is maybe $50 more than a H61 board, Zotac $80 more.

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