HTPC ideas wanted!

lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
edited October 2009 in Hardware
So I've been thinking about an HTPC. Most of my media is digital, and currently stored on a 1TB external HD. Rather than hooking it up to a laptop and then the laptop to my TV, an HTPC makes a lot of sense. Since I've never built one before, I don't exactly know how to approach it.

The recently released/reviewed Athlon II x4 chip looks excellent for this project, so I'd like the build to be based on it. Apart from that, I don't know where I'm going. I could use suggestions on motherboards, cases, cooling setups, etc.

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2009
    I can highly recommend the same motherboard we used for the review: The Gigabyte MA785GPMT-UD2H

    Pair that Athlon II X4 with a 785G chipset, and watch the thing fly though basically everything you throw at it.

    Western Digital has a line of hard drives specifically for HTPCs called AV-GP, which have enhanced cooling, low power operation, and are designed for longevity in HTPC environments; the plus side is that with a reliable drive like this (at 2tb), you have suddenly gained not only an HTPC, but a home media/file server or a backup repository, etc.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2009
    To get the most complete HTPC available, you should add a Radeon HD 5750 for audio bitstreaming. You also need a tuner with CableCard support, QAM and ATSC tuning.
  • miragemirage
    edited October 2009
    With the addition of HD 5750, you get some serious gaming capacity too. Why not? Think about a bluetooth keyboard with integrated touchpad as well, something like this (it works with PC).
  • miragemirage
    edited October 2009
    Think ahead about sound too. Instead of buying computer speakers and a high-end sound card, you can spend some more money for an HT receiver and surround speakers. You can either buy the receiver and speakers separately, or a package . I gave the links as examples.

    I have done something similar with a PS3. I think sound is much better than any sound card and computer speakers. If you think about the price of a high-end sound card and 5.1 speaker set, the costs are comparable.
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited October 2009
    With the release of AMD's 45w TDP line, I have another question. Is it worth buying a triple or quad core 45w CPU, or will an HTPC be fine with one of the (slightly) higher clocked duals?
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited October 2009
    This may be an unpopular suggestion to make here, but why build an HTPC when you can pick one up that's less expensive and just as good. I'm planning on building my home theater system around a Myka.tv box. Can't beat the price and it does everything I need an HTPC to do. That's just me though.
  • jaredjared College Station, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2009
    ardichoke wrote:
    This may be an unpopular suggestion to make here, but why build an HTPC when you can pick one up that's less expensive and just as good. I'm planning on building my home theater system around a Myka.tv box. Can't beat the price and it does everything I need an HTPC to do. That's just me though.

    I've never seen or used that device before.

    But 1tb machine for $299 is impressive. Take that AppleTV!

    Looks promising if you need something simple and don't want to be "closed in" with an AppleTV
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited October 2009
    I found a demo of the Myka.tv interface somewhere as well. It looks really polished. I wasn't able to find a reason not to grab one of those instead of building an HTPC. IIRC they even support formatting the device and installing your favorite x86 compatible OS on it without any hackery, I could be mistaken on that though.

    Oh, and I found it by listening to the Linux Action Show. I believe what they had to say about it was "it's everything the AppleTV SHOULD have been"
Sign In or Register to comment.