HTPC feedback requested

[IndyColtsFan]

Hello folks,

Forgive me for the long post. I've been a long-time HTPC user since about 2003. For the most part, my HTPC has been idle since I moved to a new home in late 2008 but I think I've been bitten by the upgrade bug. Right now, my current HTPC is as follows:

CPU -- Athlon XP 2500+
RAM -- 1.5 GB
GRAPHICS -- GeForce FX 5600 Ultra
SOUND -- Auzentech X-Plosion 7.1
BOARD -- Abit NF7-S
CASE -- Silverstone LC01
SOFTWARE -- Windows XP, BeyondTV, Beyond Media, DVD Library Plug-in, PowerDVD (don't remember version), Daemon Tools
TUNER -- Hauppauge PVR-250

The HTPC currently is configured to record shows, show live TV, and mount DVD ISO files from my backend server and play them. Recently it started having issues and that, coupled with my plan of using consoles as front ends when possible, has led me to this.

First, the template:

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing. At first, the PC will be used as a TV server/DVR. Shows will be recorded and then re-encoded to formats such as WMV. BeyondTV will run on the box and stream live TV to laptop clients. The goal is to eventually install front end software and make it a full fledged HTPC. This may also replace my dedicated server as a streaming server for my Xbox and PS3 using PS3 Media Server and/or something else.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread. As cheap as possible. Under $500 for sure, and under $400 is the preferred target.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from. USA -- likely from Newegg, ZipZoomFly, or Mwave.

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc. None.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are. Case (Silverstone aluminum HTPC case), wireless KB/mouse, drives (optical and hard; can upgrade those later), tuner cards (Hauppauge PVR-250 in current HTPC and 2250 PCI-E dual tuner card I bought about two weeks ago).

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads. Read and researched extensively, but want some feedback on the parts I am selecting. I'm having a tough time deciding between boards and a CPU.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds. No need to overclock; underclocking might even be in the plans if it helps reduce the heat significantly and therefore, generate less fan noise.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with. No gaming, but let's assume that we are going to be displaying to a 1080P display.

9.WHEN do you plan to build it? Next few weeks.

My plan has boiled down to two options:

1. Use a spare Athlon64 board and a spare Athlon64 X2 4600+ and upgrade my HTPC with that.
ADVANTAGES: Free (own all the parts) and I could probably connect the hard drive of the old system into the new system and it would boot into Windows.
DISADVANTAGES: Encoding performance lags compared to more modern CPUs and the heat generated would necessitate more elaborate (and possibly loud) cooling solutions. Water is not an option.

2. Buy new parts and build one from the ground up. Here are the options I am considering:

CPU: Phenom II X4 905e ($175) vs. the Phenom II X3 705e ($119). Both are 65 W CPUs. What would you do? That is a big price difference. I've also heard you can buy a regular Phenom II and downclock it to achieve the 65 W thermal envelope. Anyone know much about that?
BOARDS: There are so many options. I'd like an HDMI port, integrated graphics, DDR2 support (cheaper), and at least a couple of PCI slots. Form factor is not important since the case I have can hold full ATX boards. Here are two of my choices so far to see what I am looking for; feel free to name others:

Gigabyte BA-MA785G-UD3H
ASUS M4A785-M

RAM: Not important -- I'll just grab 4 GB of the cheapest but best reviewed RAM I find.
POWER SUPPLY: Cooler Master Silent Pro 600

The goal here is high performance for the tasks I mention above with the least amount of heat (and therefore least amount of fans) possible.

 

[Raduque]

Based on your usage, (real-time media encoding and streaming) I'd go with the quad-core over the triple-core.

If you don't need SLI or massive amounts of PCI Express 1x slots, I'd go with the Asus board. Both boards have six SATA ports so you don't have to choose one based on that, either. The 785g chipset is a great choice for an HTPC either way.

Oh, and older hauppage tuners like the PVR150/250/350 have issues with 4gb or more RAM. Known issue, and Hauppage can't or won't fix it.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Based on your usage, (real-time media encoding and streaming) I'd go with the quad-core over the triple-core.

If you don't need SLI or massive amounts of PCI Express 1x slots, I'd go with the Asus board. Both boards have six SATA ports so you don't have to choose one based on that, either. The 785g chipset is a great choice for an HTPC either way.

Oh, and older hauppage tuners like the PVR150/250/350 have issues with 4gb or more RAM. Known issue, and Hauppage can't or won't fix it.

Good call on the Hauppauge card issue with 4 GB -- I remember reading that in the Snapstream forums not too long ago but I completely forgot it. Do you think it is worth the money to go with the 905 as opposed to another Phenom II that might have a 95 W profile vs. a 65 W?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Let me rephrase my previous post. The 905e (2.5 Ghz) is a 65 W quad core and is selling on Newegg for $175. However, the 925 (2.8 Ghz) is a 95 W quad core but is selling for $140. Is it really worth $35 to go with the 905 in this case? I obviously want something that runs cool so I won't have to go overboard with fans and increase the noise, but I wonder if I could buy the 925 and undervolt and underclock it to achieve the same thermal profile as the 905.

I don't know much about the current AMD architecture. Can anyone shed some light and tell me if I'm on the right track? $35 is quite a bit of money and could be spent on other items.

For that matter, the Athlon II x4s are significantly cheaper still and have a 95 W profile. The Athlon II x4 635 is about $60 cheaper. I think the main difference between the Athlon II and the Phenom II is cache, right? I wonder how much this would actually matter given the application I have in mind.

If the stock coolers are too loud, my goal is to get a large heatsink (within the constraints of my case) and then using one or two quiet 120 mm fans to blow air through it. Is that feasible with both 65 W and 95 W CPUs?

 

[jae]

Athlon II x4 620 would be a great choice. The 635 additional gains from the 635 wont be much, and the 620 is cheaper. 620 does very well against the Phenom II 955.

 

[Informant X]

Why spend so much on a CPU for a HTPC/media server? I got a combo from newegg for a Asus motherboard with integrated Radeon 4200 which handles 1080P bluray fine and a AMD semperon CPU 45watts that most people including myself were able to unlock to a dual core. All that for less than 100 shipped.

This computer runs everything perfectly, Windows Media Center, all my movies, serves my movies media over the web via ORB perfectly fine. Why are you overspending for a CPU on a HTPC?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Why spend so much on a CPU for a HTPC/media server? I got a combo from newegg for a Asus motherboard with integrated Radeon 4200 which handles 1080P bluray fine and a AMD semperon CPU 45watts that most people including myself were able to unlock to a dual core. All that for less than 100 shipped.

This computer runs everything perfectly, Windows Media Center, all my movies, serves my movies media over the web via ORB perfectly fine. Why are you overspending for a CPU on a HTPC?

It isn't just an HTPC that will play video back; it will perform a significant amount of encoding as well. The computer will be running Snapstream BeyondTV and do multiple tuner recordings. I believe that because of the tuners I have, the recordings are in MPG and will then be re-encoded via Showsqueeze to WMV format (and also, may be Showsqueezed for iPod or PSP playback) and moved to my backend server, which is currently running PS3 Media Server and will advertise them throughout the house to my PS3 or Xboxes for play back. The re-encoding process is intense and if I am buying parts to upgrade my current HTPC, I won't go with less than a dual core and prefer a triple or quad core. I'm not willing to chance buying a single core in the hopes I can unlock it.

There is also a slight possibility that I will install VMWare on this box and run a couple of VMs on it as well, which is another reason I favor quad core. I currently do have a dedicated server (see sig) and originally I did try to install the tuners and BeyondTV in this box. The issue is that Windows 2003 x64 did not play well with the Hauppauge 2250 tuner I have or else, I would have just used that box.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Athlon II x4 620 would be a great choice. The 635 additional gains from the 635 wont be much, and the 620 is cheaper. 620 does very well against the Phenom II 955.

Yeah, I need to see if I can Google some encoding benchmarks to see the performance comparison. My guess is that the performance will be about even. Compared to the 905e, the 620 has 100 Mhz more clock speed but obviously, no L3 cache. Fry's had a great combo deal with the 620 a couple of weeks ago. I hesitated and by the time I decided to go back up and buy it, the deal was over. They had the 620 and a board for $129 if memory serves, while the same combo on Newegg was $180 or $190. I am still kicking myself over that.

Of greater concern are the thermal characteristics. I know the Phenom II x4 905e is a 65 W CPU and is known to run very cool. The 620 is a 95 W CPU and will run warmer than the 905e. My goal here is to have a quiet box. Do you guys think that I could take a moderate to large heatsink, stick on the 620, and cool it with 1 or 2 quiet 120 mm fans?

Also, if the box is placed in an enclosed space eventually, heat generation becomes an issue regardless of how well I can cool the CPU. After all, even if I keep the CPU cool, the heat has to go somewhere and I am afraid that a 95 W CPU might heat the entertainment cabinet up much faster. Any advice?

Thanks guys, great feedback so far.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Woah, the Athlon II x4 looks very attractive and practically keeps pace with equally clocked Phenom II x4s in encoding. That might be the way to go then. The only question is the cooling aspects. Any insights?

 

[alyarb]

in order from small to large (they're all decent values, just decide what you think will fit best with your case/mobo/ram). some will block DIMM slots and can't be rotated out of the way so do your research.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103064
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835233012
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835702007

if you want something top-down that is certain to not block any of your memory slots, just do this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103046

 

[IndyColtsFan]

in order from small to large (they're all decent values, just decide what you think will fit best with your case/mobo/ram). some will block DIMM slots and can't be rotated out of the way so do your research.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103064
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835233012
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835702007

if you want something top-down that is certain to not block any of your memory slots, just do this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103046

Thanks for the feedback! I love the Xigmatek cooler (I have it in my main rig, see below), but it is probably a tad too tall for my case. I will measure though. Those other options might work out for me very well, however. The last option in particular looks good and might be quiet enough with the included fans, which is a bonus.

If I could get more of a "tower" heatsink like the Xigmatek, what about putting one or two of these fans on it? Enough airflow or not?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185057

 

[alyarb]

i didn't check but i'd be willing to bet that all of those fans are 4-pin PWM enabled which means you can literally set their speed/noise to any value you wish. you can also tell them when to speed up or slow down based on what the computer is doing. even at their maximum speed, they are quiet. you shouldn't need to add any additional fans to your xigmatek (the propus is rated at 95 W but real-world dissipation is really nothing like that). probably better to just spend ten more dollars on a more efficient heatsink than buy a $10 fan.

have you decided on a motherboard/RAM for your Athlon? check combos. this is perfect

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.334870

 

[IndyColtsFan]

i didn't check but i'd be willing to bet that all of those fans are 4-pin PWM enabled which means you can literally set their speed/noise to any value you wish. you can also tell them when to speed up or slow down based on what the computer is doing.

have you decided on a motherboard/RAM for your Athlon II X4?

Good point about the PWM; I completely forgot about that. I do that on my main rig below IIRC -- once I got it running and stable, I guess I just forgot about my options.

I'm now changing my mind on the board a bit. Rather than the DDR2 boards I quoted above, I am thinking I might go ahead and get their DDR3 equivalents. 4 GB of DDR3 RAM is about $12 more expensive than 4 GB of DDR2 RAM and I think it would give me more flexibility in the future with CPU choice should AMD release AM3 CPUs in the future with only DDR3 memory controllers. Is this a legitimate concern? Otherwise, I am still debating a bit about ATX vs. mATX and whether or not I should go ahead and bit the bullet now to get a board with USB 3.0 and SATA 6. It looks like about a $30 premium to get both now, which might make it a wise decision because to add them later if I need them would likely cost more.

As far as the RAM goes, I am not particularly tied to any brand. I just want something cheap and reliable. My method for choosing it will be to find the cheapest 4 GB RAM kit from a reputable maker that gets at least 4 Eggs on Newegg. With the money I save from going with the Athlon II, I might even go ahead and throw in 8 GB.

EDIT: Just saw the combo you posted. That is a good deal indeed. I am leaning more towards the ATX version though because of the extra slots and I could see myself adding additional tuners in the future.

 

[alyarb]

you're right about an AM3/DDR3 system lasting you longer than AM2. As an HTPC, this is going to be a very-well equipped machine but over time the mission might change or there may be secondary objectives from other machines that are consolidated into a single machine (it should be easy to see how you could eliminate or resize your Q6600 server and, with enough cores, virtualize most or all of it within the HTPC).

this is the board you're looking for.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-397-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145251

i'm not sure it makes sense to go out of your way for USB 3 and SATA 6. Any motherboards that come with this technology use third-party controllers and you only get two channels. It's not like you get 12 USB 3.0 ports. You only get 2 of them, and the rest are USB 2.0. SATA 6 works the same way i'm afraid, at least until we get some 21st century southbridges from AMD and intel.

I do agree with you about getting a full sized ATX board. This way you could eventually add SATA6, USB 3, additional LAN controllers or tuner hardware in the future.

This ASUS is a pretty decent board for $99 shipped. It probably has the best assortment of PCI and PCIe for what you're doing.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131398&cm_re=785g-_-13-131-398-_-Product

 

[IndyColtsFan]

you're right about an AM3/DDR3 system lasting you longer than AM2. As an HTPC, this is going to be a very-well equipped machine but over time the mission might change or there may be secondary objectives from other machines that are consolidated into a single machine (it should be easy to see how you could eliminate or resize your Q6600 server and, with enough cores, virtualize most or all of it within the HTPC).

this is the board you're looking for.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-397-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145251

i'm not sure it makes sense to go out of your way for USB 3 and SATA 6. Any motherboards that come with this technology use third-party controllers and you only get two channels. It's not like you get 12 USB 3.0 ports. You only get 2 of them, and the rest are USB 2.0. SATA 6 works the same way i'm afraid, at least until we get some 21st century southbridges from AMD and intel.

I do agree with you about getting a full sized ATX board. This way you could eventually add SATA6, USB 3, additional LAN controllers or tuner hardware in the future.

This ASUS is a pretty decent board for $99 shipped. It probably has the best assortment of PCI and PCIe for what you're doing.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-398-_-Product

I like that Asus board. I was considering the DDR3 version of this Gigabyte board as well, because I believe it has more PCI-E slots:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-CPC-_-NA-_-NA

So I think I am sold on an Athlon II x4 of some variety, an ATX board rather than a microATX, and in all likelihood, the last Cooler Master cooler you linked above. Is the Cooler Master Silent Pro 600 a good choice?

 

[alyarb]

I generally prefer Gigabyte over ASUS and are with you as long as you are prepared to use more PCIe 1x or 16x than the 32-bit PCI. The Gigabyte is a better-connected board, I just figured most tuners were old-school PCI and I could be wrong.

I like the $101 2.8 GHz Propus. See how low you can undervolt it while keeping it at 2.8-3.0 GHz (you'll be surprised).

I would get something like the Corsair 650TX. inaudible seasonic quality (had mine for over a year). cooler master isn't just yet a big name in power supplies.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Thanks for your help alyarb. I ordered it this morning. For now, I went with the BFG 550W supply because it got good reviews and is quiet and was less than half the cost of the other two we discussed. Since I won't be doing any gaming or overclocking, I thought it would be OK. I can always upgrade it down the road and use the BFG on my test bench, as my power supplies there lack some of the newer connectors anyway.

Thanks!

 

[Modelworks]

If you are going to be doing a lot of encoding then consider getting a hardware encoder card. It really makes a huge difference. No point in bogging down the cpu in long encodes , especially if you are going to have to do it with every capture from mpeg2.

I don't even bother with using a cpu or video card to do encoding and decoding anymore. There are dedicated chips that work much better. I use broadcom for playback , you can get them here for $49 and it will play back 1080p perfectly every time with just a basic video card.
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/bcm970012
Add an adapter for desktop use:
http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/MP1.html

For encoding I like these.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/leadtek-winfast-pxvc1100,2523.html

 

[IndyColtsFan]

If you are going to be doing a lot of encoding then consider getting a hardware encoder card. It really makes a huge difference. No point in bogging down the cpu in long encodes , especially if you are going to have to do it with every capture from mpeg2.

Those links are really interesting. I'll definitely consider that in the future.

I'm now not 100% sure I will be forced to do every capture in mpeg2. With my PVR-250, I was; not sure how the 2250 will work (anyone?). If I can go directly to WMV (which I doubt), I won't need to do much encoding at all. I will need to hook everything up and test it. BeyondTV (which is still about 100x better than Media Center's TV functionality) lets you schedule Showsqueeze at off peak hours, so I typically have it doing the re-encode between midnight and 9 or 10 AM, which is when we wouldn't be using the PC. Plus, at this stage, this PC may not ever actually be a true HTPC except for in my man cave; it might stay in the role as a dedicated media server and run several different streaming servers based on the front ends throughout the house. So CPU utilization won't be that big of a deal for me in probably 90% of the cases I will see. If it does become an issue, your suggestions are great and I may go ahead and put those on my "future upgrade" list for the box, along with additional tuners.