New HTPC build

[AbandonedTrolley]

I'm currently piecing together a new HTPC for my lounge, I am using a 2GB Acer Revo 3600 at the moment, so it's a single core atom chip with ION gpu. I've noticed now though that while scanning and updating my library it is hitting 100% cpu usage and taking upwards of 5 minutes. Also after streaming some internet channels it will then lock up and require a reboot and also is rebooting itself more and more often. I can't really complain about the actual playback performance as it is running 3D 1080p half SBS files fine, 20% cpu usage and a steady 24fps so in terms of playback it's great. What i'm wanting to do though is build something with a bit more 'oomph' that I can also use as a retro game machine with emulators.

I've been looking at the AMD fusion boards with the 6230 gpu on them.

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E45M1M_PRO would this be up to the job of Genesis/SNES/Gamecube/PS2 ? RAM is cheap at the moment so can throw 8GB in it if needed.

Also would I see a benefit of installing an SSD over a normal 7200 laptop drive in to the machine, all my video files are held on a NAS that is connected via ethernet as is the HTPC, so other than boot time which is minimal anyway is it worth spending the extra cash when I already have a small drive I can put in there.

[HyBry]

AMD E-series will do you no good IMO. They might have a better GPU part, but CPU is not that good compared to Atom.

I would suggest AMD A-series, even a dual core (A4-3400). The CPU on those should be considerably better than Atom and GPU will be good as well.

SSD would depend on you usage. It wont hurt, but it depends on if you will care about it (noise, speed)

It should not make streaming faster, but it should speed up local tasks, launching apps and such. Should improve genereal responsiveness of system.

Persoanlly I would not bother if I had spare laptop drive and the system was predominantly for watching videos and browsing.

[AbandonedTrolley]

AMD E-series will do you no good IMO. They might have a better GPU part, but CPU is not that good compared to Atom.

I would suggest AMD A-series, even a dual core (A4-3400). The CPU on those should be considerably better than Atom and GPU will be good as well.

SSD would depend on you usage. It wont hurt, but it depends on if you will care about it (noise, speed)

It should not make streaming faster, but it should speed up local tasks, launching apps and such. Should improve genereal responsiveness of system.

Persoanlly I would not bother if I had spare laptop drive and the system was predominantly for watching videos and browsing.

The only issue I see with the A4 is it is fan cooled rather than passive. I don't really want anything too noisy going on with it. The machine will solely be used too boot in to xbmc so there are no other functions required from it.

I was just thinking that as the AMD is dual core compared to my current single it would show an improvement with the database building and responsiveness.

[HyBry]

The only issue I see with the A4 is it is fan cooled rather than passive. I don't really want anything too noisy going on with it.??The machine will solely be used too boot in to xbmc so there are no other functions required from it.

I was just thinking that as the AMD is dual core compared to my current single it would show an improvement with the database building and responsiveness.

I am not sure about single vs dual core situation here.

From what I recall the CPU part on AMD E-series and Intel Atom series was roughly the same, so you could go either way. In addition I think Intel just released second gen Atom chips, so that might be something to look into.

On a side note, you can always get a big fanless cooler :)

[AbandonedTrolley]

I am not sure about single vs dual core situation here.

From what I recall the CPU part on AMD E-series and Intel Atom series was roughly the same, so you could go either way. In addition I think Intel just released second gen Atom chips, so that might be something to look into.

On a side note, you can always get a big fanless cooler :)

True, pricing it seems roughly the same for quite a boost. Will look in to power consumption etc as obviously this is a machine that will be on pretty much constantly. Thank you for the insight :)

[gunny2k6]

in terns of power consumption for a note on NEW pc parts.. i have a little home server used for all sorts is SILENT AS HELL too !,,,

Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3

Intel Core I3 530 (stock dual core 2.9Ghz with hyper threading)

16gb Kingston HyperX Grey (2x 8gb kits, so thats 4 ram sticks at 1.5v)

Bigfoot Killer N2100 gaming network card - basicly its a IBM Power CPU at 400mhz with its own 128mb Ram and Flash chip) (OFFLOAD NETWORK TRAFFIC FROM Core I3)

IBM ServRaid M1015 6gb SAS card - basicly an IBM Power CPU at 533mhz (its a rebranded LSI MegaRaid 9240-8i)

(OFFLOAD HARD DRIVE TRAFFIC FROM Core I3)

2x 1TB Western Digital Cavier Green Drives in RAID 1 (Storage)

1x 120gb Corsair Force 3 SDD (Boot)

2x Maxtor 300gb Sata1 drives just spares but not powered (IN a HD CADDY ON FRONT)

1x Seagate 500gb sata1 drive spare but not powered (IN a HD CADDY ON FRONT)

1x 120mm Fan exhaust

1x 80mm Fan intake

all running from an generic e-power 350watt PSU

PS yes that sounds a lot of money but wasnt expensive .... ibm raid card on ebay cheap ..just flash with generic LSI firmware ;P .... killer NIC dont realy need it but hey was cheap on ebay too... the RAM was just on a huge deal over xmass 2010 ;)

cpu/mobo/case/green hardrives where all like 50 to 80 ? each ;P rest parts laying around and the most expensive was the SSD at 130 ?

[HyBry]

True, pricing it seems roughly the same for quite a boost.??Will look in to power consumption etc as obviously this is a machine that will be on pretty much constantly.??Thank you for the insight :)

I was looking (still am to an extent) at a similar build and it seems that there are no decent reviews with AMD A4-series.

I really hope that the new Intel Atom will be reviewed somewhere reputable and they will include the A4 in the review.

Best I have seen was by some guy in some forum mentioning that A4-3400 was worse then i3-2100 in terms of power consumption using xmbc, but I think it was soon after release, and there were no drivers for hardware acceleration.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

How big is your media library?

Reason i ask is I have the Acer Revo 3600 with 1gb of ram running XBMC, streaming all the media off network shares on my Windows Home Server.

Unless i'm re indexing everything i find updating the library to be really fast. I have it set to scan for new content when it resume from sleep and clean the library, which takes around 30 seconds or so.

I have around 5tb of HD media in my library atm.

In regards to your new build, you will want a 3ghz Core i3 minimum for emulating the Gamecube & PS2, the fester the better with regards to them two consoles.

[AbandonedTrolley]

How big is your media library?

Reason i ask is I have the Acer Revo 3600 with 1gb of ram running XBMC, streaming all the media off network shares on my Windows Home Server.

Unless i'm re indexing everything i find updating the library to be really fast. I have it set to scan for new content when it resume from sleep and clean the library, which takes around 30 seconds or so.

I have around 5tb of HD media in my library atm.

In regards to your new build, you will want a 3ghz Core i3 minimum for emulating the Gamecube & PS2, the fester the better with regards to them two consoles.

The library isn't actually that big atm, recently wiped my NAS and it's currently at about 1.5TB of which I would say, 400 movies, 1000 TV show episodes 200 albums. That's why i'm wondering why it's taking so long to update. It's not massive, but seems to sit there at 100% for longer than I would like it to be. Currently running XBMC Eden.

Guess that emulation is off without the i3 then, shouldn't be too surprised though really. Will check out some prices but then it's a case of also needing a graphics card as well with HDMI out. The advantage with the Fusion was the integrated GPU and HDMI out on the board.

[Site Lab]

Don't bother with the i3. You will need the graphics power. You could use a Llano APU (Like the ones mentioned before) but not be able to do as much emulation.etc. Or you could get something like an X4 for your processing power and combine it with a passive cooling 5450 or something similar. Overall the AMD systems are better value for money and actually work better in some situations.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Ended up going with the A4-3400, on pricing with a mobo it was actually cheaper than the E450 I was looking at on Amazon. Should have it tomorrow all going well, next to find a Freesat card to drop in to the machine.

[AbandonedTrolley]

System is built now, with the exception of the card (which arrived today, so will fit tonight, have some teething issues running XBMCbuntu sometimes keeping CPU usage at 100% and causing stuttering playback, however menu navagation stays smooth.

One thing I do want to do though is to change the PSU, it's currently the cheap 250W SFX PSU that came with the case, ideally I would like something quiet any suggestions? Quieter the better, but not really looking to be spending over ?100. Have tried searching possible fanless solutions but only mention was an Antec Phantom 350 which doesn't seem to be in production or sale over here in the UK.

[dangermoose]

Well for a truly silent solution you could try a picopsu. It all depends what you have to power as the highest they go to are around 150W. I bought one from http://linitx.com If you email them your setup they will recommend what size you need.

[kaffra]

Depending on your overall system power consumption you could go for a pico psu.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Well for a truly silent solution you could try a picopsu. It all depends what you have to power as the highest they go to are around 150W. I bought one from http://linitx.com If you email them your setup they will recommend what size you need.

Depending on your overall system power consumption you could go for a pico psu.

Thanks guys will look in to that then. The A4 I beleive is rated at 65W the only other thing it will be doing is powering the HDD and a dual tuner card http://tevii.com/Products_S460_1.asp Will contact linitx and see what they say.

[heyitsheather]

I'm on the same search for a quieter PSU. I'm in the process of repurposing an older PC running an Athlon x2 5600+ with 4GB DDR2 into a basic htpc. It's currently running with an Antec 550watt PSU which is total overkill and a bit load for these purposes. I'd be curious to your final decision. I'm looking to move this system into a mATX case once I can find an appropriate one so the PSU would have to fit into that.

I need to power a 500GB sata HDD

sata DVD/RW

my video card is a passively cooled Radeon 4350.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Don't bother with the i3. You will need the graphics power. You could use a Llano APU (Like the ones mentioned before) but not be able to do as much emulation.etc. Or you could get something like an X4 for your processing power and combine it with a passive cooling 5450 or something similar. Overall the AMD systems are better value for money and actually work better in some situations.

Got the machine up and running, it's actually pretty impressive. Emulation of PS2 games is smooth as silk as are SNES titles, not tested Gamecube yet though. Now it's a case of getting it to play nicely in XBMC.

Decided on running Windows 7 rather than Linux due to the drivers for the Fusion chipset being much better. This did leave me in the lurch with the TV card though as there doesn't seem to be an easy way to integrate any PVR backends with XBMC. Was going to use Media Portal but it doesn't seem to work very well.