Got a new TV and needed an HTPC to go with it. Here's my build list:
- Asus P5Q-EM G45 mATX
- Corsair 4GB Twin2x4096-6400
- Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8Ghz
- Scythe Mini Ninja CPU Cooler
- Keysonic ACK-540RF Keyboard
- Antec Remote Fusion Media Center Case
- Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard drive
- Pioneer BDC-S02 Blu-Ray Reader
- Seasonic SII-420 PSU
A few notes on the components and build.
COMPONENTS
Core 2 Duo E7400
After much research, I'm convinced Wolfdale Core 2 Duo chips are the way to go in terms of value for money and low electricty consumption. All of the Wolfdales idle between 31 and 34 watts but differ significantly in consumption when loaded. An E5200 would have been adequate but I wanted the extra processing power margin offer by the E7400 since I expect to use it for ripping. No need for speed and cost of the E8xxx series as I wasn't planning it for running games.
Asus P5Q-EM
Once I was sure I wanted to build the system around an E7400, it wasn't hard to find a motherboard. I now stick to either Gigabyte or Asus and I was looking for a mATX board. That quickly narrowed down the field and it was going to be a G45 based system.
The Asus P5Q-EM is a great little motherboard. Tons of features. Could equally use it as either a server or game machine. There is also the P5Q-VM which is a little cheaper but you lose onboard RAID and a firewire port. I figured the firewire connection might come in handy connecting to a camcorder.
Of course the issue with the G45 chipset is that the Intel video drivers generally aren't as good as offerings from Radeon or Nvidia. I figured that if the G45 does turn out to be good enough, I would just drop in an 4xxx series Radeon card.
Antec Fusion Remote
I'm of two minds about the Antec Fusion Remote case. I like the size and layout and the quality is there. You can use standard components and routing cables was quite easy. I like the fact it uses 12cm fans and has a nice chamber design. It's a bit large as media center machines go but going to a smaller case starts involving specialist power supplies, half-height drives and more problems getting it all to fit. Two hard disks fit in this case easily. The Mini Ninja cpu cooler just fits in too.
However, I'm not impressed with the LCD display as it adds little value and is too bright. All I would like it to display is CPU utilisation but I haven't found a way to do that. The volume control also doesn't seem to be able to control the HDMI audio so it's useless too. Finally, the two tri-speed fans are too loud even on low. I plan to replace them.
Keysonic ACK-540RF Keyboard
This is an excellent little keyboard. Forget using a remote. Very responsive. Highly recommended.
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB Hard Drive
Currently my favourite hard disk. Quiet, fast, cool running, big, cheap. If I need a hard disk, I buy one of these.
Pioneer BDC-S02 Blu-Ray Reader
Had to have a blu-ray drive and this one was one of the cheapest at £50. Does the job just fine.
Where's the TV tuner?
Yeah, I haven't got one yet. Requires more research.
BUILD
The build was dead easy. Only problem was I couldn't set it up to power on using the remote control. Wasn't important to me so I just connected it to directly to the on switch. Just as easy to press the button on the case that than try and find the remote control to do the same thing.
I have had some problems with the Intel HDMI audio stopping. I assume the driver crashes as a reboot fixes it. It's not often but it does happen. It's odd that there's both an Intel HDMI driver and a Realtek HDMI driver but there's only one HDMI connector. I've tried removing either one but Vista insists on installing the drivers again so the devices must be there.
I have found the G45 graphics driver crashes and then restarts quite regularly. Not a huge problem as far as video goes but it also kills the HDMI audio output which then requires a reboot to fix. Pretty annoying. I'm using the latest drivers so I don't have a fix. I'm tolerating it at the moment waiting for new drivers.
SOFTWARE
Next to getting the machine quiet and stable, the big trick with a Media Center/HTPC machine is getting the right software installed and configured.
For playing Blu-ray and regular DVDs, I'm using PowerDVD 9.0 Ultimate. No brainer.
For ripping, I'm trialing DVDFab. I tried AnyDVD + CloneDVD but found DVDFab easier to use. I gave up on the idea of ripping Blu-ray DVDs for now.
For a media player, I primarily use VLC but have just started trying out GOM Player.
I haven't been impressed with Vista Media Center. My problem is that my video files are on a wide mix of formats and my preferred ripping format is ISO files. Haven't figured out how I can get Media Center to load and play them.
For music, I'm using Media Monkey for my own collection of flac files and Spotify for music off the internet.
I have a collection of karaoke files and use KaraFun to play them.
Don't have a good solution for looking at pictures yet on my server yet. A problem there is that many of them are in Nikon RAW format.
There's still plenty of software packages to experiment with. Stay tuned.