Help with building a low power consumption HTPC/media server for ~200-250

[Informant X]

Greetings, I'm trying to setup a lower power HTPC/Media Server in my house. Gonna be on 24/7. I've seen on newegg motherboard/cpu/vga integrated mobo's with the intel atom and that would be fine BUT, I don't think those CPUS's are 64 bit. (Don't want to have to buy two versions of Win7) And also I plan on setting up raid, and want to throw in a TV tuner in there. That being said the tuner card I have requires a PCI express slot (the small one) and none of them have it. On top of that it has to have raid, or another PCI slot so I can get a raid controller card. Anyway ideas mates? Looks like you can't buy the parts seperately meaning the CPU and the mobo seperately. Any advise would be appreciated.

 

[Caladin2]

Here is the build Im working on

SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum / Steel LC13B-E ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - Retail $110

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5050e Brisbane 2.6GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor $65 (?)

GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-UD4H AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $130

CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) $50

CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS $50

Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $85

LG Black Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM & 16X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA Model GGC-H20L - Retail $110

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This also will be connected to WHS box

 

[Informant X]

Gah weird, I found a mobo on newegg that meets my requirements. It's weird cuz i went to motherboard cpu vga combo--->then intel atom and I don't see any mobo's in there with a PCI express slot. If you just select jetway instead of atom you can see a lot more motherboard (and yes they're still all atom). Nevermind So i guess I found one that would be fine, with 2 PCI slots and a PCI express slot. So I guess my only question is does anyone have any experience with it, stable wise, speed wise? Not at all expecting a speed demon. Anyway, let me know. Also is the Atom 64 or 32 bit?

Here is a one i saw....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813153144

 

[yh125d]

Atom 230 and 330 are 64 bit

 

[Blain]

Help with building a low power consumption HTPC/media server for ~200-250

* MB/CPU
* Memory
* RAID controller card
* HDs
* TV tuner card
* Case & PS
* Windows 7

If you current mid-high quality components, you're over $250
If you buy crap, you can stay under $250

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Caladin2
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $85

Don't buy this. I have a caviar green in my HTPC and it's the slowest piece of shit you can imagine. The computer takes 5 minutes to boot. I'll even put a video of it on youtube if you don't believe me.

 

[swbsam]

Originally posted by: Blain
Help with building a low power consumption HTPC/media server for ~200-250

* MB/CPU
* Memory
* RAID controller card
* HDs
* TV tuner card
* Case & PS
* Windows 7

If you current mid-high quality components, you're over $250
If you buy crap, you can stay under $250

I think your issue will be the tv tuner card - the cheap ones rely on you cpu for most encoding, which you're not going to pull off with a total $250 build. A good tv tuner card will run you $100 alone.

Here's my cheap rig:
Case- whatever's cheap and to your liking
AMD x2 processor
2 gigs of ram
Samsung 1tb hd
amd 780 chipset motherboard (the integrated GPU works fine)
Windows 7
Blu-ray drive

that's about $350 I believe, get a smaller hd and nix the blu-ray drive and you'll be at your budget

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: Caladin2
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $85

Don't buy this. I have a caviar green in my HTPC and it's the slowest piece of shit you can imagine. The computer takes 5 minutes to boot. I'll even put a video of it on youtube if you don't believe me.

Why boot if you're running Win 7? Surely you can just put it in sleep mode so it has everything in the RAM and it will return quickly, or hibernate it if necessary.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: Caladin2
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $85

Don't buy this. I have a caviar green in my HTPC and it's the slowest piece of shit you can imagine. The computer takes 5 minutes to boot. I'll even put a video of it on youtube if you don't believe me.

IF the system boots much faster with a different HD, the Green may be going bad.
Download the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows and run the "Extended Test".

 

[Informant X]

Hmm what do I want to look for to see if the TV tuner has hardware encoding?
I was looking at this TV tuner as it's compatible with win 7.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16815100041

 

[Blain]

Make sure your TV card works well with the software program you'll be running. 😉

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: Caladin2
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $85

Don't buy this. I have a caviar green in my HTPC and it's the slowest piece of shit you can imagine. The computer takes 5 minutes to boot. I'll even put a video of it on youtube if you don't believe me.

My dad has the 500gb caviar green in his HTPC and it boots Windows XP in less than 30 seconds *shrug*