HTPC

[Warrior Legolas]

I need to build a $2000 HTPC?What would you recommend???

 

[Warrior Legolas]

bump

 

[ribbon13]

$29 Raidmax 268WBP
$85 Seasonic Super Tornado 400w
$280 AMD ADA3500BIBOX
$135 Corsair VS1GBKIT400
$189 MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI
$149 Seagate ST3250823AS
$62 NEC 3520a
$8 Samsung SFD321B/LBL1
$18 Vantec NXP-201
2x$4 Vantec VDK-80
3x$9 Sanyo Denki 80mm
$103 Sapphire X600 Pro VIVO
$29 Ati DVI-I to Component
$190 Hauppauge PVR 350

$1312

7.1 + HDTV ready

 

[bookman]

check out the guides at www.htpcnews.com

 

[3chordcharlie]

at that price point, I would definitely use a 3.0+ghz P4, due to the benefits of hyperthreading for HTPC applications.

 

[ribbon13]

HTPC + noise machine? WTF?

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
HTPC + noise machine? WTF?

I'd probably aim for a northwood... but better is still better.

Just about any other application I would be interested in, I would be using AMD.

 

[ribbon13]

What HTPC application needs that much CPU?

 

[3chordcharlie]

HDTV, content filters, pvr with no skipping, being able to encode content while still using the pvr freely... recording and encoding while listening to music...

 

[ribbon13]

Toledo core sounds like it would be a good upgrade path then.

 

[Matthias99]

pvr with no skipping, being able to encode content while still using the pvr freely... recording and encoding while listening to music...

A hardware encoding capture card will let you do all of this with a MUCH slower CPU. You'll still need a real powerful one if you want to do software encoding, or use software like DScaler/ffdshow to clean up video, or to decode HD video in real time (although a GeForce 6200/6600 might help with this at least somewhat).

A lot of HTPC software actually doesn't work well with HT/multiple CPUs, unfortunately.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: Warrior Legolas
I need to build a $2000 HTPC?What would you recommend???

I'd recommend not spending $2000 on such a system. Even with a monitor which isn't needed for a HTPC, 2 grand is a really high price to pay.

A midrange P4, ATi AIW, HDTV card, 512MB RAM, desktop case, mATX MB, Audigy 2 ZS, DVD burner, quiet 300-350W PSU, smaller quiet boot drive, larger quiet storage drive, wireless mouse/KB.

Depending on how much storage you get, the whole setup shouldn't really cost you more than $1000.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

pvr with no skipping, being able to encode content while still using the pvr freely... recording and encoding while listening to music...

A hardware encoding capture card will let you do all of this with a MUCH slower CPU. You'll still need a real powerful one if you want to do software encoding, or use software like DScaler/ffdshow to clean up video, or to decode HD video in real time (although a GeForce 6200/6600 might help with this at least somewhat).

A lot of HTPC software actually doesn't work well with HT/multiple CPUs, unfortunately.

But if you're running more than one thing at a time, I would presume you still get some significant benefit.

As I said, this is really the only application where I would likely choose intel over amd if I had the extra money (I don't do video editing, or other intel-dominated tasks at all).

 

[shock311]

My system would be roughly this:

3ghz Northwood HT
Zalman cooler with supplied fanmate
2x256mb pc3200
6600gt
ahanix or silverstone htpc case
antec silent psu
2x MCE-150 tuner cards
Audigy 2
80gig drive for system and music files
200 gig for recordings
NEC or Samsung 16x dual layer dvd burner
Gyration GT suite cordless keyboard and mouse

and ask for a cable box or sat receiver that has a firewire output so you can record HD content, I believe Sage TV and MythTV support this now. Or for now you can get an HD tuner and get a few OTA channels.

As someone said above, www.htpcnews.com is really helpful

 

[stevty2889]

My HTPC:
3.2Ghz prescott ES @ 3.6ghz, thermaltake jungle 512
ATI AIW 9600pro
Gigabyte 8IP775-G
onboard audio, gigabit lan
2x512mb Kingmax PC4000DDR
80gig WD SATA drive for OS and Apps
120gig Seagate PATA drive for video storage
NEC 2510a DVD burner
Thermaltake 420w PSU
Linksys 802.11b wireless(along with AIW card, this allows me to wirelessly share video with my quiet computer in the living room, that has an ATI Tv wonder VE, not that I actualy do that often, but kinda cool none the less).

 

[Gamingphreek]

Why are all of you recommending a full system. You shouldn't spend much over 500

The goal of HTPC is to do what you want and not make a whole crap load of noise and heat while doing it. You dont need NEARYLY that much power.

Athlon 25 Watt XP-M 2400+ Undervolted to lowest possible
Abit NF7-S v2.0
ATI Radeon 9600SE, Passive cooled
Happauge PVR-150 (or if you want to spend a lot of money 350)
Onboard Nvidia Soundstorm
Corsair Value Select PC-3200 RAM
Nec 3520a DVD+-RW drive
Antec Overture case
1x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200Gig HDD (IDE/SATA: IDE is a bit quieter)
Thermalright SLK-947U or SI-97 with Nexus, or Panaflo fan @ 5V

(For a little more quiet sell the Antec PSU and get a Seasonic Tornado 350Watt)

That system will be much better for PVR. And output much less noise and heat.

-Kevin

 

[Matthias99]

But if you're running more than one thing at a time, I would presume you still get some significant benefit (from Hyper-Threading).

Unless it makes your applications crash, you should see some benefit. But some applications apparently don't like it.