HTPC Giveaway Review - with pics!

[Dareos]

Well, a great big box arrived on Tuesday but sadly I didn't have the time that evening to get started. Last night I got stuck in though, and opened the box!

I found this stuff inside.



However, as this is for a review and not just for me to drool over, I thought I best rearrange them into a more funky format.



Having satisfied my artistic needs for the moment, i decided to open some boxes and see what lay within. I spotted one immediate problem.



Thankfully I have no plans to use my own kettle for a few hours, so I can circumvent this problem.

Everything else looked pretty good, but here's a quick shot of the mobo as I really quite like it. There's plenty of space on such a small form factor and it's altogether rather pretty, shame it's stuck away in a case tbh.



Finally, heres a shot of the supplied AMD heatsink and fan sitting next to the aftermarket cooler



Theres a fair bit of difference there, and the Scythe looks the business.

So, on to the build itself.

First, I would like to say, that this has been the most frustrating build I have encountered, more on that as we progress. I unscrewed the top of the case and separated out all the cables, checking what I had. USB 3 cables with adaptor, power, audio, reset and HDD LED cable. All pretty straightforward. Theres a rather strange plastic device sitting at the front of the case and no I/O cover, which are fairly useless when they are supplied by the mobo manufacturer anyways.



This is where i made my first mistake. I didnt check the riser positions on the case. One didnt match up, 2 more are stuck out to the side where they can't be used. The case is only supplied with one additional riser, it really needs another for support near the power connection.
I installed the PSU with no issues at all, straightforward and easy as you like.
I moved on to placing the I/O cover on the rear of the machine. Usually this is a case of placing one hand firmly on the rear of the case and clipping the I/O cover into place, simples. Unless the rear of the case is made of aluminium so thin that you are in great danger of bursting through it if you exert even the minimum of force on any one point. One corner of the cover was proving tricky to push in and I thought the whole back of the case was going to come away when i pushed down on it.

I then installed the processor and RAM onto the mobo. The aftermarket cooler comes with a little bag of thermal paste, rather than a tube, but theres plenty of it and its easily applied, kind of sticky and slidy at the same time, but not so much its all over the place. Its some of the better stuff I have used. Its a good idea to install the RAM before the processor as its not low profile stuff and the cooler does get in the way, its possible to squeeze it in afterwards though. The cooler comes with 6 clips, which had me scratching my head, but its for 3 different ways of connecting it up, depending on the mobo. The rather complicated design is actually very simple to fit and remove, and actually doubles as cable management once locked in place, happy accident rather than design i believe.



Motherboard time. I had it in and out a couple of times as I realised i needed the extra riser supplied for the PSU end of the case, then daftly put it in the wrong socket. Once in it was fairly sturdy, except under the power connector, which when attached, caused the mobo to bend alarmingly. Due to the plastic weird thing at the front of the case, its not easy to stabilize it when you connect it.

Fan time, and the start of the frustration - In fact it was really all of the frustration, it just led to me being frustrated over simpler things that actually weren't incorrect. The 2 additional fans look really good, they are shiny and colourful and sturdy. The four corners of the fans have screw holes in them and are slightly angled, apparently at a different angle to the side of the case. Then there's the screws, which are too big. They fit the side of the case ok, but in order to screw them into the fans you need to use an inordinate amount of force (and you can't use the back of the case for purchase or it will cave in....) I must have spent an hour on these 8 screws. I got the four bottom ones in fine, flush against the case, but the top ones were just ridiculous. Poor design on these. I kept second guessing myself and making sure they were in the right way round and so on. I tried 3 screwdrivers because I thought possibly one was too small, another was possibly partially stripped (cheap set) but on the 3rd i found i was actually stripping the screwhead with the driver, terrible screws, just terrible.

Anyway, i took a break from it and came back to it today. Finished installing the fans (screws sticking out along the top of the side casing, except one.....). I moved onto the SSD. It seems the strange plastic thing at the front of the case is an HDD caddy. It has 4 very specific screws (which i missed and spent 15 minutes trying to fit smaller ones to, see what I mean about frustration...) packaged separately, which mount SSD on top at the front of the case. There is some method of attaching other drives but at this time I won't attempt it. Once its installed back into the case its pretty good for cable management.

With everything that I could connect connected, i powered it up, no joy, so then I checked my connections again and found that the APU power was not connected and I had no suitable connection. Took me a bit to realise that the 8 pin connection was actually two 4 pin connections. I've come across it the other way, where you have a 6 and a 2 that you place together, but never one where you split the solid looking 8. After that it powered up, took me to a setup screen and that folks, is where I am at right now.

Overall, it's a fairly nice setup. I am pretty glad that it wasn't my first as there were just too many unclear areas of the procedure. Please bear in mind that I am attempting to be objective too, as yes there are flaws, but I got this for free thanks to the generosity of AMD and HEXUS, and i'm loving every moment of putting this together.

This review is obviously not complete and is currently more of an installation guide than a review. The hardware is setup, but I still have not decided on a software path. I am considering installing a Linux Distro simply because I have never used Linux, or I could put any version of Windows on it, even considering Windows 8 due to it being an HTPC and will probably just run some version of XBMC or similar.

Saying that, I would love some suggestions as to how to implement this. I would take pictures of my setup, but currently my mate is moving house and that room is rather cluttered.

I plan to have this connected to an Onkyo 608 AV receiver, replacing a Popcorn Hour PCH 200, but sitting alongside my server (HP microserver 54L) running 2008 R2, an Xbox One running...nothing as there aint much available (its still a great piece of kit though). Its also where my switch, superhub and so on are located. Through the AV receiver it will link up to my Samsung LED TV (UE46D8000). Having never had an HTPC before, I don't know whether the HDMI on the board will xfer sound and if so, at what level, 7.1 would be nice.

Suggestions and Criticisms below please (lets leave the Xbone out of this )

More to come once software has been chosen.

[peterb]

Good review - looking forward to hearing how it performs (and noise levels will be interesting too). I've 'stuck' the thread so it doesn't drop off the page!

[Dareos]

Just a quick interim update.

Its a bit noisier than my server, definitely noisier than my Xbox One, but its not what I would call loud. Certainly doesnt affect the room im in.

I'm connected up via an amp, but the HDMI connection only appears to give 2 channel sound, so my 7.1 is useless atm (currently fed through Xbox One, so not supported via passthrough anyways). I need to find a connection for the Amp as the mobo doesnt have an optical connection.

I've installed Windows 8.1 on it, it runs incredibly smoothly, and XBMC, currently setting that up properly. I was a bit concerned at having to use a mouse and keyboard to control the media but fellow networking student pointed out the XBMC app, still to get that up and running though.

i'll get a few benchmark programs running, 3d mark and i think handbrake, but not really sure as have never used it.

Edit : 3dMark 11 scores giving me 437, which is less than an office PC, also seemed to take forever loading firestrike, get the feeling there may be some compatability problem rather than anything else as the first demos looked awesome

Edit 2 : Plugged right into the amp, instead of using the HDMI passthrough, seems I have full surround again, need to test that tho. The HDMI on the mobo obviously autodetected the Xbox's 2 channel limit and was setup accordingly. On the plus side, i now know my HDMI passthrough works as it was having major issues with my V+ box

[Dareos]

So i've been busy most of the night messing around and seeing what its capable of. First off I added my steam account and downloaded Arkham Asylum and the Mortal Kombat Kollection. MKK is Games for Windows title it seems and won't run on 8, so have to pass comment on that. Steam however immediately caused problems on the box. A restart or 2, and a few windows updates and all seemed to be working ok. Arkham Asylum point blank refused to run, either from desktop shortcut or from within Steam. I was getting a little exasperated with this as I could see no good reason for it not to run, so I reckoned I would give Arkham City a go. Its a fairly hefty download but I have decent BBI so I switched back to the Xbox One for a nice relaxing game of Fifa (nearly broke TV with controller...) and by the time the match was over, Arkham City was ready to go. Except I clicked on Arkham Asylum... which worked....and I have no idea why....

So, based on the updated scores from 3dMark after a driver download (442) I was expecting a complete horrendous, jerky and grainy experience. It looked great. There was a little stutter on a couple of sweeping camera motions, but other than that it looked and sounded brilliant. I don't think 3dMark gets on well with the APU structure or drivers, and while this is not a games machine, there's no reason it can't be used as such for less visually demanding games.

Anyways, I fiddled away with a few settings, changed over some cables and now the PC is directly connected to the amp via HDMI (noted in earlier post). The computer now recognises 8 channels rather than 2 and the sound is pretty darn good. I also messed around with XBMC, changed a few skins and made sure I was getting full screen 1080, (was windowed by default for some reason). The upshot of all this is that using my tablet, I can wake the PC via Wake on Lan from anywhere within the house (it only takes 12-15 seconds to boot, so its kinda gimmicky as I have to put password in anyways). I then have full access to all my TV series, Films, Music and Photos via the HTPC, using the tablet as a remote. There are a couple of teething problems with the remote which takes restarting XBMC to resolve, but thats minor.

I will post some pictures in the near future of the setup, in order to give a clearer view of its role and how it fits in. That room is rather a mess atm due to a few boxes that shall be reclaimed by their owner in the next few days.

I have used a Popcorn hour A200 for the past 3 years or so in this setup. Its a good device but its limited in what it can do. Recently I have been having issues with it streaming 1080p films from the server. Sometimes the server wasn't recognising it, other times it was just juddery as hell due to the network card. The HTPC was transferring at 114MBps, cant really see any issues occurring with streaming with that kind of transfer rate.

I mentioned benchmarks earlier, but after the couple of hours I spent on 3dMark and trying to get some kind of sense out of the results, I have decided to go without them. In this instance they would pretty much be meaningless numbers unless they were compared to a similar device.

Conclusion :

This is a review after all, so I have to come to some kind of conclusion and as stated earlier, I need to be objective about it.

Cons :

I don't like the case much, mainly due to the back of it being so flimsy. It looks fine, and it does the job, but I feel some of the noise could have been cut out by decent dampening. Saying that, its fairly easy to work in, so its not all bad.
The fan screws, they are awful.
Size, its a tad bigger than I would like, larger than any modern blu ray or dvd player, substantially larger than my V+ and Tivo boxes.For me, minor gripe, i have the space. It might be different for others though.

Pro's :

Versatile as anything. A little know how will set you on the right path to having this system deliver exactly what you need. I didn't bother with an optical drive, but easily added. There is space for several hard drives within the case, so potentially it could be a stand alone system with several terabytes of video at your fingertips.
Its fast. This isn't a home pc laden down with security, games, accounts, and miscellaneous files. Its got plenty of RAM, a good sized SSD for the OS and whatever else you need to hand. If its kept that way, theres not much that can slow it down.
I love the motherboard and aftermarket cooler. The board is sleek, the ports and slots are well positioned, its clearly marked and has everything needed for this type of PC other than optical, and tbh optical isn't used that much, so its fine. The Heatsink and fan design (including fittings) are a joy, easy to fit and remove (take note Intel and your four pin push down twisty thumb breaking pillars of nastiness). The last temp readings I took had it running around 29degrees or so. I'll check that later under load.
The APU itself is an awesome little piece of tech. Arkham Asylum looked fantastic on a 46 inch screen, better than an Xbox 360. I know the 360 is nearly 8 years old but the APU is only 2 inches corner to corner. Its a cracking little number.
The magnetic dust cover is a really nice touch.


In conclusion then, although my little Popcorn hour media centre (which is roughly a quarter of the size of the HTPC) has been an excellent device I now feel it has served its purpose and needs to be situated somewhere else as the HTPC will be taking its place. I can use remote desktop to control it from elsewhere. It fits seamlessly into my network. It can act simply as a media player that can actually play every format. When its functioning as a media player its controlled by mouse and keyboard or tablet or phone, so no losing the remote. It can (and will) double up as a games machine for undemanding games using a wired xbox controller. I wish I had done this a couple of years back.

Final Thoughts - Its an expensive but thoroughly satisfying way of controlling your network or stand alone media. There are cheaper options on the market. WD Live, Popcorn Hour, any number of media streamers linked to a NAS. Everyone of those has limitations however, whether its in the file formats they play or the sound output etc. This solution is fully customisable. I honestly do not think that I would choose any other option thats on the market atm. Its definitely not for everyone, don't be putting something like this together for Auntie Mabel who has to call you every time she changes the source setting on the TV and can't get Columbo on. Its for folks that like a bit of a tinker and don't get disheartened when it doesn't all go to plan.

[scaryjim]

Edit : 3dMark 11 scores giving me 437, which is less than an office PC ...

a) ignore the "comparison" scores, since they don't give any indication of system components
b) Check the Hexus 3DMark thread (and add your score to the list ) - 437 on Firestrike sounds about right to me, given this is the lowest-end Richland APU. You've only got a dual core, 3GHz CPU with 128 shader IGP, it's not going to monster the latest DX11 games, which is what firestrike is intended to represent.

EDIT: I lied, they do tell you what the "office PC" is made up of: it's an AMD A8-5500, so double the cores and double the shaders of your chip I'd be amazed if as much as 1% of office PCs could actually score > 500 in firestrike, or even run it, tbh

[HalloweenJack]

personally I would stick an A10-6800k in there

[Dareos]

I'd be very tempted to stick a graphics card into it. None the less, its a cracking unit. XBMC has really impressed me too, It does mean that I will have a couple of things to buy to augment it. Wireless keyboard and mouse due to its positioning.

Im looking forward to see what Razer makes of it. He has mentioned overclocking and so on, and if he can boost those results then it may be worth looking into.

Its an ongoing project, looking to get the best out of it, i'll keep this thread updated with anything that improves it. Suggestions always welcome

[Dareos]

So, a couple of squinty pics to show how its been integrated into the current setup





So, from top left of the cabinet to the right, we have the HP microserver and general NAS box, awaiting a 3TB drive upgrade, the dreaded superhub, space for a router if I can get my draytek talking to it again, and the Xbone
2nd shelf we have the HTPC, currently with keyboard and mouse connected, but will replace that with wireless soon. The Onkyo 608 AV amp is on the right
3rd shelf contains the Popcorn Hour, which shall be moved at some point, but its useful where it is atm, my surge protector, V+ box and switch on top of it.

This all links in to





definitely some dodgy photography there, I was at weird angles trying to take the pics as this room is currently filled with boxes

It gives an idea of how its looking though, which is all important at the end of the day.

[DR]

Great thread - thank you I've just moved this to reader reviews so others can see it too