Newbie HTPC build or buy

[Gatman]

Hi everyone,

First post here. I've been lurking for a while and am just getting started with an HTPC. I recently purchased a Ceton InfinTV 6 ETH and have installed it on my network. I've started playing with Media Center on my main PC for now, and if I decide to move forward and get rid of the cableco's equipment I would end up with the following set up: HTPC in the basement hooked up directly to my home theater, an extender (probably Xbox 360) in the family room and an extender in the master bedroom (either an Xbox or an Echo - the least amount of TV watching gets done here).

The next step in my process is to get a dedicated PC and get it up and running in the home theater in the basement. This will get me time to get any kinks worked out before rolling it out to the entire house and ditching the cableco equipment. I'm the main tv watcher that uses the home theater, so the wife won't be upset if things aren't working smoothly down there. It will also give me a chance to let her use it a bit.

Soooo....I am trying to decide between buying a PC and building one specifically as a HTPC. I have been reading threads on here about some of the smaller form factor PCs that are available now, as well just looking at already-built PCs. Since this will be in an unfinished section of the basement I'm not that hung up on what it looks like. It's going to be on a shelf next to my HP Microserver that runs Amahi. All my equipment is GB ethernet, and the house is prewired in most areas with CAT5e.

I just found a Dell Inspiron with the following specs:

• Intel Core i5-4440 Processor 3.1GHz
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM
• 1TB 7,200RPM Hard Drive
• Intel HD
• DVDRW Drive
• 8-in-1 Media Card Reader
• 10/100/1000 Network

It's on sale for $499. That seems like a pretty good price, and I haven't been able to put something together from scratch with these specs for close to that price. I'm thinking about pulling the trigger. I figure if for some reason I decide to stick with the cableco equipment, I could always sell the Ceton and use this to replace my aging 6-year-old 2.3ghz Athlon dual-core PC that I use as my every day PC.

My only question is: Is there any reason I wouldn't want to use a PC like this for HTPC instead of building one? Energy usage, or something else I'm maybe not realizing? I looked at the recommended specs from Ceton and this is probably a bit on the heavy side, but I figure it leaves me some wiggle room if I ever want to add another extender.

Thoughts and feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Gary

[ceh4702]

To answer your question it might cost a little more to build it yourself.

When it comes to purchasing a Computer to use with your HDTV or other equipment it depends what your inventory of needs are. I just put together the following and found it works for my needs:

Case: Cooler Master 130 Elite $45
Power Supply: CX430M (Modular) $45
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI 802.11ac/n/g + Bluetooth $129
CPU: i3 4330 3.5 ghz, HD 4600 Graphics, 4 Meg Cache $129 Sale Price
RAM: GSkill Ares 8 gig (2 x 4) Kit $70
Hard Drive: 1 Gig Western Digital Blue Label (Had to RMA) $69
Optical Drive: Old DVD DL burner $20-$50
OS: Microsoft Win 7 Home Prem $99 -Look for a sale price
Keyboard/Mouse: Maybe a Wireless Keyboard or Controller??

Consider this as an example or case study.

This is not exactly going to fit into a cabinet. The case is fairly small, but I don't know if I like Drive configurations inside the case. However it is minimalistic. It is questionable whether to use a DVD/Blue Ray Drive and some people do without or use an external drive and use the Optical Drive bay for HD and SSD's. I have a wireless router, so I wanted to use the Wireless option. So I chose a motherboard with a Wireless Centrino Card. I really like it being wireless. Now I can move it and my TV to any room I want. I tested it on HULU watching some Korean Video and it works great. Seems to run fairly quiet with just the stock cooler.

If you plan on encoding and storing video a few large capacity hard drives might be in order.

I Do watch Free Over the Air HDTV with a cheap indoor/outdoor HDTV Antenna I purchased. Other than that I just watch shows on the Internet. My wife and I just disconnected all Cable TV because it is too expensive and the TV programming was just lousy mostly. I don't really miss the attempted Brainwashing of Mass Media. It might cost a little more.

[Mike88]

The Dell looks pretty good to me & is more powerful than the one I built. I'm not sure what kind of extra horsepower extenders require & hopefully someone with that knowledge can join in & comment.

At lot times people build an HTPC because they have specific needs such as housing several HDDs. Or they're going to use some high end playback software that requires a high end CPU.

My needs were simple & I too thought buying a PC instead of building. Sometimes you see a real cheap build but the costs do not include Windows or an HDD because the person is using a server. But for $500 you get a ready built & working PC which includes Windows 7. I would make sure the Dell has HDMI out and a PCIe x16 slot for a video card just in case you need one.

I ended up building an HTPC because it's just something I wanted to do. I got all or most of the parts on sale & already had a legit copy of Windows 7 so my cost was less than $300. But I've only got a dual core Pentium & 4GB RAM. If I added a few bucks for an i5 and a few bucks for more RAM and $100 for Windows 7 I'd be right at that $500 price point. It's difficult to beat the price of some of the ready built Dell & HP PCs. These may not have a sexy HTPC case but that may not make any difference depending on where you put the unit.

Is that Dell you found have a regular mini-tower case or one of those slim cases?

[Gatman]

The Dell is a regular size ATX tower. I do like the idea of something smaller, and that's one thing that has me waffling. It has HDMI out and an open slot for a card if I decide to get one later. Decisions, decisions. The acquisition of the hardware is half the fun some times!

I'm going to be doing this with my 10-year-old son as a father/son project. As such, buying all the parts and putting it together with him is making me want to go the self-build route even if it costs a bit more. He is pretty handy for his age, and I think he'd enjoy doing this, I just need to keep Mr. Static Electricity's hands out of the case while it's open. I may have just talked myself into building one as I typed this.

Thanks,

Gary

[mistarick]

Build it.. you can do it, just do your homework. If your not set on Intel, you can get some great AMD processors with GPU that will work great for an htpc. Also, you will have fun doing it, and its always a great feeling when you do something yourself. Warning. There are many many decisions to make. Lol. Lots of cases which can dictate motherboard size and components. A fun journey though. Good Luck!

[Mike88]

Just make sure the mobo that you pick out has the slots & connectors that you want/need. I see some of these cheap boards on sale & they have a serial port but no HDMI output, or stuff similar to that. Or they have several old type PCI slots & not enough PCIe slots. I planned on using 2 OTA tuner cards so I needed 2 PCIe x1 slots and PCIe x16 slot for a graphic card and someway to get SPDIF audio output.

One thing that took me some time to figure out was which software to use because I kept reading about different players, codecs, etc. Turns out all I needed was WMC that comes with Windows 7. I didn't need any other software. I'm not saying that some other software won't do a better job if using the correct CPU. But a lot of folks seem completely satisfied using WMC7.

Building with your son seems like an excellent father/son project. You cannot put a price tag on that.

[adam1991]

My only question is: Is there any reason I wouldn't want to use a PC like this for HTPC instead of building one?

None. It'll work great.

But consider your needs for recorded TV storage, and/or ripped movies. You will want to add at least one, and maybe two, 4TB drives into that for media storage. Make sure it has the room you need for that.

Also, you very well may end up adding a video card to properly handle the video output to your TV. You *may* not be perfectly happy with the performance of the built-in video out, so make sure it has room for a video card. (Does it have HDMI out?)

And don't forget to pick up an infrared receiver and remote.

[adam1991]

The Dell looks pretty good to me & is more powerful than the one I built. I'm not sure what kind of extra horsepower extenders require & hopefully someone with that knowledge can join in & comment.

They don't require horsepower; they require (a) solid networking, and (b) 1GB of RAM per extender in addition to the RAM used for the base computer. So, his 8GB is fine, and it looks like his networking is fine.

Although, full disclosure, I have heard of people having trouble with some onboard NICs and they end up adding a NIC into the system.

[Gatman]

Build it.. you can do it, just do your homework. If your not set on Intel, you can get some great AMD processors with GPU that will work great for an HTPC. Also, you will have fun doing it, and its always a great feeling when you do something yourself. Warning. There are many many decisions to make. Lol. Lots of cases which can dictate motherboard size and components. A fun journey though. Good Luck!

I think I've talked myself into building it. I've built a few PCs before, so I am ok with tracking down the parts and making sure they'll all work together. My son will probably enjoy it until it's all put together and it's time to install Windows. That is WAY too boring for him to hang around for, I'm sure.

Thanks,

Gary

[mistarick]

Sounds like you got it all under control. Ahhh the hardware choices now. Thats where I'm at again. Thinking about a mini itx build here this time around.

[Gatman]

Thinking about a mini itx build here this time around.

I have been looking at those quite a bit. I found a nice Lian Li case on Newegg that looks well thought out - e.g. the power supply isn't right on top of the motherboard, and there is room for 4 drives. It's still rather compact though. I have to watch for a sale now.

[barnabas1969]

The link below is what I recently built. I'm really liking it so far.

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=7&t=5587

[mistarick]

I have been looking at the in win itx cases but don't know how reliable the power sources are?

[Gatman]

I have been looking at the in win itx cases but don't know how reliable the power sources are?

Those are nice-looking cases. I looked at a few of them on Newegg and Amazon, and poked around in the reviews. I didn't see any complaints about the power supply. I know at one point I saw a similar size case by another manufacturer that I liked, but it that had all sorts of complaints about the power supply so that one was off the list of candidates immediately.

Thinking about what I need and want, I think I'm going to go with a Fractal Design Node 304 case. It's a bit bigger, and a bit more money, but it appealed to me because it's not TOO big, can handle a regular graphics card if I ever need to add one, has room for plenty of drives and uses a "regular" PSU. Since this goes in the unfinished part of the basement, I have to keep reminding myself that "sexy" isn't as important as functional.

~Gary

[Shackleford]

I've got the in win BP655.200BL. I really like it but I did replace the power supply with a Seasonic SS-300TGW due to the noise and inefficiency. The seasonic is very quiet and efficient.

[mistarick]

I've got the in win BP655.200BL. I really like it but I did replace the power supply with a Seasonic SS-300TGW due to the noise and inefficiency. The seasonic is very quiet and efficient.

How do you like the motherboard with built in WiFi? Ive been leaning that direction for my mini itx build.

[Shackleford]

I've got the in win BP655.200BL. I really like it but I did replace the power supply with a Seasonic SS-300TGW due to the noise and inefficiency. The seasonic is very quiet and efficient.

How do you like the motherboard with built in WiFi? Ive been leaning that direction for my mini itx build.

I don't use the WiFi but its there if I need it.