Help with first HTPC (or any) build

JamieFitzsimons

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Hi all,

I've recently gotten into using services like Plex to stream movies to my TV via Chromecast, currently I use the generic office PC in the house to achieve this. It is not a machine I would like to leave on all the time so I've decided to (try and) build a dedicated machine for the job.

I've done a bit of research into the important components but am definitely in need of advice and recommendations.

So far I have looked at:

Case: BitFenix Prodigy - Midnight Black (Looks ideal for a newbie build) - Purchased

Motherboard: MSI A88XI-AC £70

CPU: AMD A6-6400K - £45

RAM: Looking at 2x2GB for now, open to decent recommendations on this.

SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 128GB £70

HDD: Now, I've looked at a few WD drives for this, the WD green looks fairly decent as it's cheap and energy efficient. So I'll most likely throw in one of these.

Power Supply: This is a bit of a grey area for me, I've seen many say 300-400W is enough for any HTPC? Also, I like the idea of a Modular PSU as I am a bit of a neat freak! From what I've read I can put anything within the ATX spec into the case I've chosen.

OS: Windows 8.1 £70 (Was hoping to get a free copy as I work in retail and it was free via Microsoft Expertzone at one point, seems I missed out on that!)

As mentioned above, very new to the building game so I may have missed bits and bobs so please feel free to advise in anyway, it would be much appreciated!
 
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Hello!

I think your general build seems okay.
I am not familiar with that motherboard or CPU though, you may need to add a graphic card depending on how good the onboard graphics are. Does the case include a PSU? If not you'll need one of them, I get on well with BeQuiet ones.
You probably don't need as much as 250GB space on your SSD if it just for holding an operating system and some HTPC software. I think use about 25gb - 30gb for Windows 7 + MediaPortal + ArgusTV + a few other bits and pieces.

I am not sure what you mean about an internal NAS drive. If it's internal storage then it wouldn't be Network Added Storage. But if there is space in your case, then the easiest and cheapest way of adding storage is to just stick a large capacity mechanical HDD in there (or lots if there is the space). You can then share these across the home network so it will act as a NAS for other devices. I do this with a couple of machines in my house, and have them to set to sleep (S3) when not in use, then can wake them over the LAN as required.

EDIT: Oops I see that you have mentioned the power supply already, yes somewhere around 300 to 400W should be good, and modular ones are good for cable management also. If you google PSU power calculator they are quite interesting. Always come in a lot lower than I think for me, but handy to have a bit of extra overhead for future expansion I think.
 
Personally I'd don't really see the point of those massively oversized Mini ITX cases, I'd rather just go for a MicroATX case of the same size and have the spare expansion card slots. And yes, with a low power CPU, no graphics card and a single hard drive & SSD 300W is plenty of capacity.

The replacement for the A6-6400K, the A6-7400K, was announced in the last couple of days so you might want to think about waiting for it. AMD releases three new A-Series APUs | bit-tech.net

Although personally I'd be inclined to go down the Intel route now they've put quicksync on a £50 chip (Pentium Anniversary Edition). It's a proper dual core so it should be faster CPU-wise and while it doesn't have the 3D processing power of AMD's chips it is a newer design so you get 4k decoding acceleration and it's more power efficient.
 
Much appreciate the processor info! I had ordered the A6-6400K lastnight but in light of your help I cancelled the order and will look into the pentium you mentioned.

The case I managed to get a good deal on locally which led to the decision, that is now in my possession so will definitely be the case for the build. Please bare in mind this is my first build, after this I'd most likely build a much tidier solution in the future.

Any thoughts on the Motherboard?

Also, the PSU, do you have any recommendations at 300-400W? Is it worth looking for something 80 plus gold+ or would 80 plus bronze be adequate?
 
Is it worth looking for something 80 plus gold+ or would 80 plus bronze be adequate?

At full tilt the system will be using circa 50W (and as an HTPC that's likely to be rare). The difference between 80% and 90% efficiency is only going to be ~6W. Lets say you run it for six hours at day at 1/4 load. That's 9Wh a day, around 1kWh per three months, or 50p per year.

And it's worth pointing out that, except for Titanium, the measurements for the 80Plus efficiency badges only start from 20% load so if you are interested in efficiency you'll need to look at the detailed efficiency graphs to get an idea about how the power supply performance for the more typical low loads you'll be using it for.
 
Very helpful info, learning a lot already!

I have a very newbie question now, I have read that Mini ITX boards don't necessarily have room for a video and sound card? Not a huge issue but I'd potentially want a dedicated graphics card in the future.

Question is, I currently use a home cinema set up that consists of:


Yamaha Aventage series RX-A1010

Dali Zensor 1 5.1


Would this set up handle the sound? I know nothing of but have read about bit streaming and apparently the HTPC would have to pass this on for my amp to take control of it?

If I get an apu a6-6400 or above would it not be enough to process this info without the amp?

I guess I just need some clarity on sound as obviously it is important to me, cheers!
 
The Mini-ITX motherboard standard specifies one expansion slot so you can only have one card. There's nothing to stop you taping a USB sound card inside the case of course, but that's a little more messy ;) There was a Mini-DTX standard that was Mini-ITX with an extra expansion slot but it didn't take off at the time.

Would this set up handle the sound? I know nothing of but have read about bit streaming and apparently the HTPC would have to pass this on for my amp to take control of it?

If I get an apu a6-6400 or above would it not be enough to process this info without the amp?

Generally there are a couple of processes of interest:

1. Decoding the sound. The sound is compressed using a technology like Dolby Digital so it takes up less space on the disk(/bandwidth downloading from 'net) and it requires unpacking before playing. Bitstreaming refers to sending the still compressed data straight from the source to an external device (in this case an AV Receiver). The computer is quite capable of doing the decoding itself but some people prefer to leave it to the specialised audio hardware. I'm not an expert on receivers so I couldn't enumerate the advantages but I believe they're generally fairly small things. If the computer does the decoding it can still pass the uncompressed audio to the amp digitally.

That is assuming you're using HDMI. The older S/PDIF standard has limited bandwidth which means bitstreaming is much more useful because it can't accommodate surround sound using uncompressed audio or the newer losses compression standards.

2. Digital to Analogue conversion. Leaving the realm of ones and zeros and entering the messy and subjective world of wiggly electrical signals. This is the bit that you generally spend the money on an expensive sound card/amp/receiver etc. for. The analogue outputs that share the £70 budget on a motherboard with all of it's numerous other functions are not going to be anything special quality-wise.


I can't recall there's anything in the way of particular hardware you need to look out for for decoding/bit-streaming over HDMI (it's a software configuration choice).

p.s. Small correction: I just learned today that the entire range of Haswell Celerons and Pentiums now have quicksync activated (they didn't at launch), not just the anniversary edition.
 
I would recommend you can at least pass through Dolby TruHD and DTS HDMSTR via HDMI or you won't be able to stream the best (currently) HD audio to your AV receiver.
 
Interesting stuff, I will definitely be using an MSI A88xi AC as my mobo for the build, I noticed there isn't a lot of choice around the A88x Mobo's but liked the idea of support for the Kaveri range of AMD processors which I will most likely be investing in. This means a HDMI port is definitely available and will be used to connect the HTPC directly to the amp
 

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