Features - QOTW: What are the best components for a £650 HTPC?

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You've got £650 to play with, what hardware do you buy to build the perfect HTPC?

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invalid thread?

Depends what you want from a media centre, how much storage for example. Do you want a blu-ray drive or not.

How about Intel NUC i5 c £200, Tranquil fanless case £100, 8GB memory £60, MSata 256GB £120, Windows 8.1+Media centre £100, My Movies add on, keyboard mouse combo: £20: total price £600

For the more adventurous:

AMD A10 (£100), Motherboard (£60), memory (£70) get the 1.35v low profile, SSD 128Gb (£60), HD 1TB (£45), Nano PSU (£90) Streamcon silent case (£220) total: £645. And use Linux + XBMC!


Alternatively blow the budget!!

Streamcom FC5 case is a beaut (£220) or HDPLEX H3S (£150) , Blu ray (£120), 256Gb SSD (£125), Memory (£70), Nano PSU (£90) Intel i7-4790T (£250) MiniITX z97 (£110) c£1000 software would be Windows 8.1, My Movies, PowerDVD 14

hi,at the moment you can get a a 4k htpc at 24hz.So i would recommend Z87e-itx + i3 4130T + a slim htpc case with sfx supply (at least 300w) + an Asus BW-16D1HTbd writer (very silent)<>not the best
+ GeminII M4 + 2000mhz cheap ram(transcend in my case) +windows 8.1 + mpc-HC + 64GB msata + NAS (with 4tb WD RED) --nad you have a total of=

Pick up a laptop for £250 with HDMI, Powered USB3 Hub £50 for a good one. Let's see that leaves £300 for Harddrives for storing everything... could get three 3TB USB3 externals at £80 each... leaves £60 for Wireless Remote / Keyboard / Mouse etc.

As it's a laptop and a few externals it'll fit wherever you like, be quiet, and barely sip power. Most laptops are 15-30w, Hard drives will power down to 1-2w idle and no more'n 12w running.

I'm just going to leave this here for now, since the link in the article seems to be broken.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/letsrace567/saved/D8vqqs

This is pretty close to what I'd build for an HTPC. I like the look of the 250D, although it's admittedly not the smallest mITX case out there. I chose the quad core chip because I had the room in the budget. The SSD was a must, and 128GB of storage is more than enough for an HTPC if the content comes either from the Blu-Ray drive or streamed from the built-in wireless on the MB. Power supply is gold rated and has a little headroom for a mild discrete GPU down the road, and a single stick of 4GB RAM is more than enough for general use. A wireless KB/Mouse are essential for the living room IME - remotes and controllers just don't cut it for me. I've found that W8.1 works well for multimedia, and quick boot times (>10sec) are awesome for a media centre too.

Add a couple quiet fans and a quiet CPU cooler, and that brings the budget to £640.

PS- I live in Canada, so this rig would cost me ~$870.

Strange that this is the QOTW, just in the process of looking at a new HTPC that'll double as a gaming rig!

To keep within the £650 limit my spec would be:

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 - £134.58
M/B: Asus H87I-Plus - £85.04
RAM: 8GB Corsair DD3-1600 - £59.76
GPU: 2GB MSI Radeon R9-270 - £134.72
HDD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda - £59.04
Case: Antec ISK600 Mini ITX - £53.98
PSU: 500W Corsair CXM Builder series
O/S: Windows 8.1 OEM - £70.57

That's everything from Scan for £649.89, include a download of XBMC to provide a nice interface for your TV!


Personally I'm looking at a similar build, but instead of the 2TB HDD, a 128GB Samsung 840 EVO as I have all my media stored on a Netgear ReadyNAS; a Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini-ITX Cube to make it even smaller, possibly a SFX PSU to help airflow and a different GPU that's 17cm max, like the recently announced 2GB MSI R9-270X ITX.

What do you guys think? Anyone had experience with the Cooler Master Elite 110 case?

Happy to hear any suggestions for alternative cases, but after something small that can either blend in under the TV, small box like the Elite 110 that can hide behind the TV cabinet or something that can be VESA mounted behind the TV.

M_Taylor40

I wonder if you could fill out a zotac EN760 for that budget?

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Originally Posted by cjs150

Depends what you want from a media centre, how much storage for example. Do you want a blu-ray drive or not.

How about Intel NUC i5 c £200, Tranquil fanless case £100, 8GB memory £60, MSata 256GB £120, Windows 8.1+Media centre £100, My Movies add on, keyboard mouse combo: £20: total price £600

For the more adventurous:

AMD A10 (£100), Motherboard (£60), memory (£70) get the 1.35v low profile, SSD 128Gb (£60), HD 1TB (£45), Nano PSU (£90) Streamcon silent case (£220) total: £645. And use Linux + XBMC!


Alternatively blow the budget!!

Streamcom FC5 case is a beaut (£220) or HDPLEX H3S (£150) , Blu ray (£120), 256Gb SSD (£125), Memory (£70), Nano PSU (£90) Intel i7-4790T (£250) MiniITX z97 (£110) c£1000 software would be Windows 8.1, My Movies, PowerDVD 14

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I would basically say the same with the A10, but would change it to a sandisk ready cache For £30 but the storage to a low power 2tb drive and install windows.

After recently building an Intel NUC-based OpenElec machine, a £100 version running a Celeron, and realising how stupidly large, power hungry, loud and unnecessary my mATX HTPC at home is, i couldnt possibly recommend anything else.

Therefore my £650 is as follows:-

£100 on Intel NUC
£15 on a 2GB DDR3 SODIMM (note that 2GB is already overkill)
£5 on a USB stick to install the OS on to (a 4GB stick is plenty)
£10 on a remote control (MCE)

A Synology 4 bay NAS for £275.
£250 worth of hard drives (probably a couple of WD Green 4TB's to begin with, then expand down the line as you'd need).

OpenElec on the SSD, and you're away.

I don't understand putting 8GB in a htpc

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Originally Posted by dirky

I don't understand putting 8GB in a htpc

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For a standard HTPC you're right, it's overkill. But as the topic states that for £650 you should be able to build a hybrid HTPC/mini gaming rig, 8GB if about right. If you plan on running it as a HTPC/Media Server then you might want to go with 8GB just to be on the safe side as well.

If I was just going for a standard HTPC, then I'd just go with an Intel i3 based NUC or Gigabyte Brix.

I was close to going with the Gigabyte Brix Gaming model that has an AMD CPU and GPU, but after reading the reviews that point out the issues with noise, cooling and performance throttling I decided against it, shame as it could have been the perfect mini gaming HTPC.

Ok, but that is really mixing two completely different types of pc. I am still running a am2 based dual core, 2gb with more importantly a dedicated nvidia low end gpu + XBMC. Never missed a beat.

I have 2 HTPCs at home and am about to put in a 3rd.

One is used to rip media, play movies, Lovefilm as part of normal evening media viewing. The other also doubles up as general work PC and light gaming (I have a dedicated gaming rig as well).

Both HTPC are in fanless cases, no matter what the reviews say, I can hear computer fans whirling in quiet parts of movies.

The ripping HTPC has an i7-3770T in it. Total overkill, but sub-45W TDP. It gets hot (up to 90C) ripping Blu rays and transcoding if the air temp is warm but never throttles. What I dislike about it is that the Blu-ray drive is noisy. For some reason the makers of optical drives and case designers have never put the effort in to dampening the noise of optical drives that was put in for HDD. I have this in an HDPLEX case that fits perfectly with my AV rack

The second HTPC is an i3 NUC but put into a tranquil fanless case. If you do not need an optical drive (or are happy to attach a USB one when needed) this is the way to go. IT looks great.

For the 3rd HTPC I will probably look to something like the Raspberry Pi, simple media streaming (all my media is on a NAS) and web browsing. Very cheap but not so easy to set up.

Probably the most overlooked aspect of an HTPC is the keyboard/mouse. I have not found anything that is perfect yet for when you are relaxing on the sofa. The best I found was the size of an Xbox controller with a trackball built in. Cost £20 a Maplin but I think discontinued now. Was a bit laggy, build quality was a bit plasticky, and would not also work as a universal remote. There is a business opportunity for someone to do it right

For an HTPC I would want a GTX 750ti for low temps and more importantly low noise while still being capable of high settings on recent games.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/7CMcRB

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Originally Posted by psi

For an HTPC I would want a GTX 750ti for low temps and more importantly low noise while still being capable of high settings on recent games.

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I was annoyed with NVIDIA when I read that the GT 740 will use Kepler. A passive low profile card based on the GM107 would be something I'd buy, and I was expecting NVIDIA to use that in the 740, not regurgitate the last gen chip.

Hhhmmm, been looking at making something like this:

Rii 174; Mini 2.4GHz Wireless PC Keyboard £16.49 (Amazon)
Corsair CXM Builder series 430W PSU £35.65 (Amazon)
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 PC3-10666 £32.88
AMD A10 5700 £88.28
Scythe Shuriken CPU Cooler £25.66
MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 £41.70
128GB Crucial M500 SSD £52.94
Silverstone Milo ML03B £46.84
Emprex 3009ARF Wireless MCE Remote Control £9.65 (Amazon)

TOTAL £350.09

But then I wasn't gaming and had a NAS floating around in the background somewhere. So I guess to bring it up to spec I'd also need the following:

2TB WD WD20NPVX Green, 2.5" HDD £111.84
Xbox 360 JR9-00010 Black Wireless Controller £28.24
BlackGold BGT3650 Quad DVB-T2/DVB-C £165.60
LiteOn IHAS124-14 £11.27

NEW TOTAL £667.04

Software would be OpenElec/XBMC with Ubuntu/Mint+Steam for gaming (Dual Boot).

Yes, it blows the budget a little, but you get multiple channel recording (Better than Tivo!) and proper gaming on the couch (No way can you play keyboard and mouse games on the couch, has to be a game console controller). Graphics aren't the fastest in the world, but enough for the odd game and with Ubuntu/Mint you have lots of 'old skool' retro possibilities (Emulators and the like).

Well, they be my thoughts anyway...

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Originally Posted by MSIC

After recently building an Intel NUC-based OpenElec machine, a £100 version running a Celeron, and realising how stupidly large, power hungry, loud and unnecessary my mATX HTPC at home is, i couldnt possibly recommend anything else.

Therefore my £650 is as follows:-

£100 on Intel NUC
£15 on a 2GB DDR3 SODIMM (note that 2GB is already overkill)
£5 on a USB stick to install the OS on to (a 4GB stick is plenty)
£10 on a remote control (MCE)

A Synology 4 bay NAS for £275.
£250 worth of hard drives (probably a couple of WD Green 4TB's to begin with, then expand down the line as you'd need).

OpenElec on the SSD, and you're away.

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^ This. I've replaced my Nvidia ION based boxes with these now.

Also 1GB is plenty for XBMC ... Intel also make a fanless NUC for about £100 now too. It's slower than the one you mention, but is fine if you don't have enormous libraries as it's still got all the HTPC playback stuff.

I love Lian-Li PC-C37 case for my HTPC, as it takes matx boards, a normal ATX PSU and allows space for a normal optical drive. I have modded my one to include an LCD front panel. OpenELEC is a great distro for a HTPC.

You could play around with an anniversary pentium + a cheap discrete card. I use a G3220 as a home server / plex server - and the thing plays blu-rays pretty ok.

Play around with that - You can probably even drop the r9 270X, as that pentium apparantly isnt too bad an overclocker.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PG64Bm