BUDGET low power media PC

[Andeh13]

I am interested in my first media PC. It will be used for 100% XBMC/eventual blu ray drive and will be more or less left on - though I hope to find a way of timing it to come on & off when I desire.

So far I have come up with the below for a budget low power setup. Can anyone comment? Will be used for FULL HD, 5.1 output nothing more.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooler-Maste...im_computers_6
£36

http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-H61I-E35...words=mini+itx
£43

http://www.amazon.co.uk/CIT-400w-Mic...s=mini+itx+PSU
£20

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-SDSS...A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
£40

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Integral-DDR...&keywords=ddr3
£24

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-BX8063...1155+processor
£27

Total price of approx £220, and i have a spare windows 7 I will use.

Can anyone advise, or adjust?


Many thanks

[jim]

In General Discussion, Andehh?

Thread moved

[Andeh13]

Apologies! Many thanks, not quite sure how I managed that!

[DannyM]

For what it's worth there is a 24p issue with all Ivy Bridge CPU's and Sandy Bridge CPU's (some see it, some don't), however there is now a Haswell Celeron CPU which has this issue fixed as far as I am aware, the Intel G1820 or the G1830.

[Lucio]

You can get the case with a similar PSU for cheaper

CIT MTX0001B

However, if you're looking for a "Media PC", these days its probably easier to get a SmartTV box instead, something like this, since you get web browsing, online streaming services, and the ability to playback from external sources as well.

[Pob255]

Replace the PSU 2 reasons, 1 it's the wrong size, the 120 elite take full ATX psu and more importantly 2 it's junk

For PSU the CXM 430W is a great option http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-Buil.../dp/B00ALYP208 you could get the non-modular version but it's only £4 cheaper
The Be quiet L8 300w is worth looking at too http://www.scan.co.uk/products/300w-...ized-120mm-fan not modular but for low power you'll probably get better efficiency out of it because of the lower rating.

That said the elite 120 isn't that small, the silverstone sugo SG05 is a smaller case http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...-psu-%28sfx%29 granted you'd need a slim optical drive when you want to add a blue ray and that will cost a bit more.
And it's not a ATX psu it's SFX

For an SFX psu the FSP 300w ones are excellent http://www.scan.co.uk/products/300w-...03v-atx12v-psu smae internals as the BeQuiet one (also made by FSP) but not as fancy looking and the fan is a bit noisier.

EDIT: Just spotted that amazon has got hold of some of the old lianli Q07 cases, ok it's more money at £45 but for a really small LianLi aluminium case it's great value.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lian-PC-Q07A.../dp/B003GTNYYG

For a more budget option you could try the InWin BP655 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inwin-BP655-.../dp/B007XAK4TC at first you might think it more expensive but it does include an ok psu in the price (Power Man the make is actually InWin's own brand name) nothing amazing and don't do much on the 12v as it's an older design, but still should be enough for your needs.

[tavalin]

How about the following build? It's smaller in size but can still hold a blu-ray drive, possibly lower power, and would cost about £210-220.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2NYHh

Coincidentally it's not far from my low power media build

Click here if you want to see my build

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is what I would get:

Antec ISK110 ~ £66

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antec-ISK-11...eywords=isk110

ASRock H81M-ITX ~ £52

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-H81M-...words=1150+ITX

Intel Celeron G1820 ~£32

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...haswell-retail

4GB DDR3 ~ £29

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hypertec-Hyp...rds=2X2GB+DDR3

Sandisk Ultra Plus 64GB ~ £43

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-SDSS...words=SSD+64GB

The total should come to around £223. You can use an external Blu-Ray reader and they can be had for around £30.

Edit!!

Supposedly the dual core Kaveri CPUs will also be released by Q2 2014,and the IGP should be better for media usage.

[wasabi]

You could possibly use a Pico-PSU instead? Completely silent.

The low end Intel chips are fine for media usage as long as you disable UAC. My G620T doesn't skip a beat.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The ISK110 uses a DC-DC PSU.

[tavalin]

Cat your build is almost identical to the one I recommended except for the case

I went for the ISK300 purely because he mentioned wanting a blu-ray.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The PSU in the ISK300-150 is very inefficient which is a shame:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...e-Review/934/1

It is only around 64% to 76% efficient. I went for th ASRock motherboard has it has more analogue audio outputs.

[DanceswithUnix]

The PSU in the ISK300-150 is very inefficient which is a shame:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...e-Review/934/1

It is only around 64% to 76% efficient. I went for th ASRock motherboard has it has more analogue audio outputs.

That is a shame, although at 230V most auto voltage power supplies seem more efficient.

That review doesn't mention how loud the case is either with the fans and PSU going.

Edit to add: Wasting 24W at idle isn't a deal breaker to me tbh. Unable to stop it making an annoying noise would be. Is that PSU any kind of standard??

[wasabi]

A 120w psu is going to be closer to your real power draw so less wastage. Also means the Power supply heat source is external to the case.

I use one of these with an early version of one of these - 120w pico-psu.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

DC-DC PSUs are quite efficient,especially if the have a half decent power block. The ISK110 comes with a Delta one,and I expect at the wall you would be lucky to see 60W with a G1820. My E3400 and Zotac 9300 based system runs off a 120W picoPSU with a Seasonic 60W power block. At most it hits 63W at the wall,and usually it seems to be around the 35W to 50W mark IIRC.

The G1820 and the more efficient platform should be better IMHO,and the 90W DC-DC PSU in the ISK110 would probably be fine.

[DannyM]

I just built one of these, pretty much the same spec as what Cat put up, albeit just a different type of RAM and SSD. So far it's been great.

I had a few niggles, the audio doesn't work over HDMI without the Intel Driver (which does make sense but Windows did install an Intel driver through its update system which didn't do audio). I got the Intel driver through the Intel website. I've watched an hour long TV episode with no issues, smooth playback and sound was fine.

It runs really quiet with the stock cooler, I have a sky box and that's the loudest device when the HDD is spinning up and down.

The build itself was better then what I thought it would be, a few reviews suggested taking the power board out to fit the motherboard in and one YouTube video reviewer removed the front IO panel to get it in, I didn't doe this, it was tight but not stupidly so.

Cable management in the case isn't really possible, it's more a case of damage control but most of them can be tucked to one side.

If you're running XBMC with the Intel chip, make sure you uncheck the box in the settings that says something like run XBMC in full screen mode, if you don't video playback is really choppy.

I've still a bit to do software side, especially with my harmony remote, but the hardware is great, for the price I'm really happy.

I've been wanting a fast, smooth and quiet media centre experience for a good price for a while now and this seems to be it.

If you need to know anything let me know. It's well with a purchase. (CAT's spec).