building an HTPC on the CHEAP

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downphoenix

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Need your input on this.

Basically, this machine will be used as a home theatre PC. No Blu Ray or High Def really though, but it does need HDMI support so it can connect to my TV. Need good, cheap power from this machine for just general purpose goodness. No gaming on this machine (At least any serious games, internet games, things like that maybe, but Im a console gamer all the way). Form Factor needs to be small, small, small. The case I picked out is a shuttle PC Barebones, which they're about 7.5 inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 12 inches long, much smaller than typical towers. It doesnt need to necessarily be in that type of box format, but I just like it I guess.

I priced a spec of my own, my budget ideally is 600$ or less. Im not REAL picky b/c I been running my current machine for over 6 years now, and while it was a damn good machine when I got it, this will easily smoke it. The main kicker with this is I will be doing video and audio processing with this machine (for making Youtube videos and recording game footage) so if you have any tips for maximizing performance within that budget, Im all ears.

Shuttle PC Barebones Kit (Case, Motherboard, Power Supply,etc ) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856101034 229.99

CPU Intel Quad Core Q8200 2.3 ghz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115055 169.99

Disc Drive Lite-On 22X DVD Burner http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106287 22.99

Hard Drive 320 GB Western Digital http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136098 49.99

Memory 2x2Gig Corsair DDR2 800 Dual Channel http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145184 (44.99 with 25$ mail in rebate = 19.99)

OS Vista 64 Bit Home Premium OEM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116488 99.99

Final Cost - 592.94 (617.94 - 25$ mail in rebate)

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Final thoughts:

I wouldnt mind going the Phenom route, but I dont think I would go with any other AMD processors. Intels seem to beat out AMD processors all the time.

Graphics card is a future upgrade, and in the future I may sub in the DVD Burner for a Blu Ray player/DVD Burner. Otherwise, doubt I'll do any other upgrades. In the meantime, integrated graphics will do for me, so unless you can magically price a spec in that price range, with a small form factor, and a video card with HDMI support, you'll be wasting your time pricing one for me.

Probably won't venture beyond the integrated sound or network interfaces. I know some crazy audiophile is going to ask why, but I just honestly dont need anything else.

Dont need a big harddrive or anything like that.
 
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You can build a htpc and even would be HD no problem for 400, cheaper if you go with unbuntu

Ditch that case, you should be able to get a budget case and a decent ps for 60-65, There are a lot of case PSU combos at 50, but at the 60-65$ range you find ones that have a decent PSU. A good motherboard are the ones with the integrated ati 3100,3200 etc. About 60$ It has hardware acceleration for HD and comes with an hdmi port. On a 3200 I was even able to run fallout on medium settings at a good frame rate. Go with AMD, the upper tier of phenoms are decent, especially if you are not overclocking and doing high crysis gaming. a 9850 2.5ghz was 91 last week and is in the 115 range.

Here is a 2.4ghz 9750 for 120$
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009198

MB for 56$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157149


50 for a HDD should get you at least a 500gb I paid 62 for a 750g samsung months ago not a BF deal.
http://www.goharddrive.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=G01-0067&Click=46325


You said you wouldnt need a big hdd, but why not get it if its around the same price? Movies and videos can take up a lot of space. Pirating aside, there are a lot of free content to dl and watch.

Anyways save the 200
 
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I think the processor is overkill, personally for a pc thats gonna be used for playing back videos, some youtube stuff, and browsing the web. A dual core is plenty.

What you want to invest in is a video card, there are some very decent video cards with hdmi in the $70 dollar price range, I just picked one up and a long hdmi cable on ebay to hook up to my hdtv.

It'll prepare you for HD playback and can even do some gaming. The main benefit for you is that it will help you with the video conversion.
 
Everyone has some really good advice. Just going to repeat it too.

Processor: as long as it was made in the last 3 years, you'll be fine. AMD too!!! it's CHEAPER!!!
Memory: just enough , 2GB
HD: MORE = better , get as much as you can.
Video: Find one that can do some video processing, mostly the 4000/3000 ATI and 8000 Nvidia's

Rest of the stuff doesn't matter.

You'll need two good hardware tuner cards, those will be expenisve if you wanted to record TV.
Sound card that could possibly join the collective of your other audio stuff, make sure it works in Vista MCE or whatever linux you want and drivers too. Audio out could be optical on some boards that work.

It's alot of work, but it's alot of awesome when it is working. Have fun and be patient.
 
Don't get a quad core processor; get a faster dual core processor for the money. Video applications don't make much use of more than two processor cores, from what I understand. You'll be better served by having a processor with a faster clock speed.
 
one reason I want to avoid AMD is higher power usage, meaning more heat in that small case. The only way I can get acceptable power usage is with the Athlon X2s or Semprons, which are outdated and dont deliver the bang that I can get from a Core 2 Duo for just a bit more.

I decided on a dual core though. BTW Im just using Newegg as a base place to shop, I will actually look around when its time to buy, its just that they generally have excellent prices and tons of selection, so its an easy starting point.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116076 99.99

Everything else will be the same, as Im still not convinced that I NEED a graphics card right now. The GMA3100 should be easily sufficient in running at 1280*720 resolution (which is what I will be running on it b/c of my TV not being 1080P or anything like that) and doing video playback and web surfing no problem. I imagine it can't take THAT much more power to the new machine to do this in Vista than my junker Athlon 3000+ with an integrated VIA K2 chipset can do. I cant do HD playback with my current machine (lags too badly) but I should have no problem with it in the new.

BTW, when I say I will use it for recording, I have a device called a Gamebridge, which I can hook in RCA and S-Video inputs into, and it goes through USB. So wont be needing a video card for capture purpose. And I dont have Cable TV, so this wont be a DVR. We watch netflix on my 360, and it would be nice to have stuff like Hulu and Youtube in the living room, and having the extra PC would also be nice if one of us is on the computer, the other can be too.

If I do a video card, Im staying cheap, and not doing any gaming, so I might go with something like this

Asus Radeon HD3450 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...escription=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc= 29.99

then go with a cheaper shuttle kit that has everything I need.

about the only thing that is processor reliant that Im doing is video editing and Blu Ray/HD playback when I do eventually get a drive (When they're cheaper). Im only a hobbyist video maker, so Im not going to need anything that is super crazy.
 
[quote name='downphoenix']one reason I want to avoid AMD is higher power usage, meaning more heat in that small case. The only way I can get acceptable power usage is with the Athlon X2s or Semprons, which are outdated and dont deliver the bang that I can get from a Core 2 Duo for just a bit more.

I decided on a dual core though. BTW Im just using Newegg as a base place to shop, I will actually look around when its time to buy, its just that they generally have excellent prices and tons of selection, so its an easy starting point.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116076 99.99

Everything else will be the same, as Im still not convinced that I NEED a graphics card right now. The GMA3100 should be easily sufficient in running at 1280*720 resolution (which is what I will be running on it b/c of my TV not being 1080P or anything like that) and doing video playback and web surfing no problem. I imagine it can't take THAT much more power to the new machine to do this in Vista than my junker Athlon 3000+ with an integrated VIA K2 chipset can do. I cant do HD playback with my current machine (lags too badly) but I should have no problem with it in the new.

BTW, when I say I will use it for recording, I have a device called a Gamebridge, which I can hook in RCA and S-Video inputs into, and it goes through USB. So wont be needing a video card for capture purpose. And I dont have Cable TV, so this wont be a DVR. We watch netflix on my 360, and it would be nice to have stuff like Hulu and Youtube in the living room, and having the extra PC would also be nice if one of us is on the computer, the other can be too.

If I do a video card, Im staying cheap, and not doing any gaming, so I might go with something like this

Asus Radeon HD3450 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...escription=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc= 29.99

then go with a cheaper shuttle kit that has everything I need.

about the only thing that is processor reliant that Im doing is video editing and Blu Ray/HD playback when I do eventually get a drive (When they're cheaper). Im only a hobbyist video maker, so Im not going to need anything that is super crazy.[/QUOTE]


AMD is cheap and it doesn't need to be that powerful to get what you want from it.

AMD has several low power/low heat dual core CPUs that would be better than a Core2Duo.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...escription=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

all 45w, a handfull that are dual core, that will offer plenty of processing needs.

I think your HTPC expectations are above than what you really need.

And picking up that ATI card would be perfect for it. Good solid choice there.

This is just for playback, really don't need much and only reason to get a video card is to pump out better video processing.

for the longest time I had a 2500+ Barton that ran my dual tuner XP MCE setup, was perfectly fine.

Building a gaming machine will tax a system more than video playback and DVR options since tuners should be HW based.
 
Get a gigabyte motherboard, they tend to overclock really well and i have yet to get one DOA. Those DOA components are a killer off newegg...two week turnaroud time everytime.
 
I agree with everyone the Quad Core is overkill save some cash and get a dual core.

2gb of ram is more then enough.

Video Card should have HDMI out, HDCP (just to be safe), and I would go with 256mb on board memory again for the future. (I will be honest Video cards are not my specialty so more research is needed. My above statement is from what I have been reading on AVS forum)

HDD should be as big as you want to pay for.

Get a cheap TV tuner are and throw an antenna on it for some OTA HDTV.
 
I would recommend getting a ton of hard drive space if you plan on recording tv. That space can disappear pretty quick. I have a 200 gig partition and only 30 gig free. I should note that is not filled with stuff in HD. If it was it would have gone a lot quicker.
 
there is a thread on slickdeals dedicated to building your own pc, can't remember but it may have info on htpc as well. Best prices on parts. All up to date as well. You may want to check over there.
 
Trust me, you want a good video card. Integrated chips often have bottlenecking at higher resolutions when you have to decode higher native resolution video, and the smoothing tends to be a lot better with discrete cards. Your link to the 4650 wasn't working for me, but the nVidia 9500GT is also a good alternative at about $45:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127373

Or this 4650 which is a tiny bit more expensive, but definitely better:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127417
 
yea, you're gonna need a dedicated video card depending on the size of you're tv, despite you not doing HD, the computer resolution wont be able to match the tv and it'll be stretched. also keep in mind how much power usage you're using and get a psu matching it. most likely you'll need 400w max which will help with the heating


edit: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121302

this video card would be good, low power usage
 
780G chipset + one of the new 45 watt Athlon X2's is probably the best bang for the buck. The integrated video has VGA, DVI, and HDMI, and has hardware accelerated blu-ray and H.264/VC1/MPEG2 playback. The chipset is designed for HTPC's.

It basically has a Radeon HD 3xxx series card built in (I think they're calling it an HD 3200). You can run it in a hybrid crossfire mode with an HD 3450 if you want to, and it'll support 4 displays that way. Shouldn't need to though.

Pair that with an X2 5050e or 4850e and you've got a nice HTPC. Those CPU's cost about $60 or less, 780G boards are available in Micro-ATX for $60-$80 and mini ITX for more. Asus makes a barebone kit similar to the Shuttles for $150.

Performance of the 5050e compared to the linked e5400 is comparable, the AMD even wins in some benchmarks. 5050e is cheaper and is only 45w, e5400 is 65w. Plus the AMD 780G boards are cheaper than comparable socket 775s.

Intel wins hands down in the high end market ($300+) but AMD provides the best bang for the buck for anything less than that.
 
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$600 for a "cheap" HTPC? Christ almighty, man, I spent about $300 on my main high-powered gaming rig a few months ago...

There is absolutely zero reason to have a quad-core CPU in an HTPC. No media apps that I'm aware of are quad-threaded.
 
[quote name='CoffeeEdge']$600 for a "cheap" HTPC? Christ almighty, man, I spent about $300 on my main high-powered gaming rig a few months ago...

There is absolutely zero reason to have a quad-core CPU in an HTPC. No media apps that I'm aware of are quad-threaded.[/QUOTE]
I just dropped $200 for a Phenom II CPU + motherboard combo. Its an X3, but the 4th core is unlockable most of the time and it overclocks like a motherfucker. I'll have to scrape together some ram and the rest with the little money thats left, probably looking at another $150-$200 before its all said and done.

Once that 4th core is unlocked (assuming it works), it becomes an X4 920 (a $200 CPU). Even if that doesn't work, its got 6MB of L3 and an unlocked multiplier. This'll be a fun little project to overclock, somebody got 5ghz with dry ice or some other ridiculousness.
 
[quote name='CoffeeEdge']$600 for a "cheap" HTPC? Christ almighty, man, I spent about $300 on my main high-powered gaming rig a few months ago...[/QUOTE]

lol I spent $300 on just the motherboard!
 
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