HTPC help needed

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My old media PC has finally had it and I need to upgrade. I'll be cannibalising the old machine and keeping the case (Antec Fusion), power supply and some of the drives.

But my big question is what processor/ micro ATX motherboard do I go for? I'm pretty out of date but I see that the combined CPU graphics thingies seem quite good these days - I'm aiming for very low power consumption and quietness (I want to leave it on all the time). It will be mainly used for (in descending order of frequency): watching live tv via tuners, recording tv, playing DVDs & bluray, streaming iPlayer, playing downloaded films in iTunes, serving up music.

So what do I do - budget a few hundred ideally (just need the processor, motherboard, probably new fan, might buy a SSD for the OS).

On a related note I've always used windows (currently 7) and its media centre which I'm not that blown away with. Was thinking of swapping to XBMC - is it any good? Should I go the whole hog and put XMBC on linux - which would rule out iTunes I guess?
 
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I use XBMC on Windows 8. Using an Intel I3 3225 chip (about £90) which i run using a fanless heatsink.

XBMC loads up straight from bootup in under 10 seconds and the whole system is generally very fast and snappy. Completely silent to :)

When i was building mine i saw a lot of people were using the 65w AMD A10 chips (i think the 5800) but sadly i couldn't use that in my case due to motherboard layouts.
 
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Ah interesting - that was exactly the chip I was looking at (mainly for the low power consumption and good graphics). If you don't mind me asking what motherboard do you have it on and which fanless heatsink (is it in a large case?). Is the HD4000 good enough to deal with bluray and other full HD sources?
 
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I *think* the motherboard is an Asus P8H77 (mini ITX). Its in a streacom FC* case, which uses the case as a heatsink through heatpipes.

I've not had any issues so far, although probably the trickiest file i've played is probably something around a 3gb 1080p rip i downloaded. Haven't got a Bluray drive in there yet to try playing those.
 
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Great thanks - I think I'm going to stick with my current case, there's not a lot wrong with it other than being a bit bigger than I'd like. Might look into silent heat sinks though...
 
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My HTPC

Intel i5 2400 3.1Ghz Sandybridge CPU (retail version)
Asus P8H61-I motherboard
2x4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 OC3-10666C9 1333MHz dual channel ram
128GB SSD

No need for a dedicated GPU, plays anything I can throw at it with ease, infact I guess mine is a bit overkill for a HTPC (To be fair tho it was used as a main PC before upgrading)
 
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Ah good stuff thanks very much. These integrated GPUs are pretty impressive, I think the noisiest part of my old HTPC was the GPU fan which was needed for MPEG4 play back. Should be quite a bit cooler and quieter without that lot.

Hmm had forgotten about RAM though - I'll go for some cheap stuff. Will XBMC get by with 4gb? Actually something else - is there any reason to swap to linux, does XBMC 'like' it better?
 
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4gig will be fine.

As for the OS. Are you JUST going to be using it for XBMC?

Because if you are you can get a linux/XBMC distro that pretty much only has xbmc on it.
 
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Yeh I would be pretty much only using it for XBMC - other things that I use the current one for are: 1) General file store (so fine under Linux) 2) Squeeze box server (again fine under Linux but I'm thinking of dumping the squeeze box anyway). But 3) I do use it to down load/rent films via iTunes and was thinking of using this to manage and play music via iOS remote control - I'm guessing this would be a lot harder under Linux?

I think the sole reason I'd be putting Linux on would be a) potentially more stable (had a surprising number of problems with Win7) b) more configurable (but I don't really have time to play with this) c) because I want to have a fiddle with Linux again.
 
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4gig will be fine.

As for the OS. Are you JUST going to be using it for XBMC?

Because if you are you can get a linux/XBMC distro that pretty much only has xbmc on it.

I find Windows 8 and an air mouse are a great combination.

I use XBMC as well, but for things like netflix and iplayer I just windows 8 tiles.
 
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I should probably stick with windows - if I had more time then playing with linux could be *fun* but it's more important to get something working quickly. What air mouse do you use by the way?

I'm also wondering about shaving some cash of this thing by dumping the i3 3225 for a Pentium - I quite like the idea of the higher power graphics and lower termal out put but I'll probably be paying an extra £100 for the processor and higher spec motherboard. Would the pentium graphics be up to the job?
 
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I'm using an old Core 2 Duo chip with onboard graphics and that copes fine.

The air mouse I use is a MELE F10 2.4GHz 3 in 1 Fly Air Mouse Wireless Keyboard Remote Control, cost £20 on ebay.

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It's brilliant, gives you really good control of the cursor and has a keyboard on the other side. Also has some media buttons but I've never had the need for them. I do have a standard media centre remote for XBMC but tbh I don't really use it any more.

Edit:

Going by this: http://ark.intel.com/compare/53422,53492

The i3 seems to be more media orientated, might be worth the extra it saves you having to buy a graphics card later down the line.
 
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My HTPC now lives in the garage, replace it with a raspberry Pis running openelec distributed around the house. Silent, low power and play anything I throw at them.

The HTPC is now just a file server and mysql database provider for the XBMC library.
 
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That air mouse does look very good. I'm using a Dinovo Mini to control my HTPC.

As for the question about whether a regular pentium chip would do the job i can't really answer. I do also have XBMC running on a E450 Fusion chip (with integrated graphics) and it works ok for pretty much everything. Only thing is it is a little more sluggish on the more demanding skins. Still more than useable though.

I also use XBMC Commander for iphone/ipad to control both my XBMC setups. I much prefer it to the Dinovo remote.
 
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Super thanks for all the good advice - have to get one of those air mice, looks nice. I did wonder about going down the PI route but since I've got lots of media centre bits I just thought it easier to stick with the current setup - plus running iTunes etc etc would make it all a bit tricker. I guess I probably should go for the slightly better processor - saving £50 now and finding I can't play HD would be a waste (though it does look like XBMC is fine on a Pentium with HD graphics - just)
 
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Actually I do have another question. I notice that XBMC recommends running on Win7 (if your'e going for windows that is). Is there some reason not to use Win8?
 
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