I've been running XBMC on my $1000 laptop for a few months now and it feels like a real waste of equipment, so I'm looking to sell the laptop, buy an ultraportable laptop that I'll actually use AS a laptop, and build a HTPC.

The build below is what I've come up with so far. My goals are:
1. Small, quiet
2. Fast enough that I won't hit any ceiling anytime soon
3. Attractive, matches other A/V equipment in style (minimalist) /color (black)
4. As cheap as possible given the above requirements

I don't need blu-ray (have a PS3), and I don't need a gaming video card. Since I'm primarily using external storage and NAS for my content I don't need a huge HDD, but I feel like SSDs are still too expensive for the performance boost / added quietness.

Case/PSU: Silverstone SG06B Mini ITX Case w/ 300W PSU
Mobo: Zotac 880GITX-A-E Mini ITX AM3 ... SB3.0, HD4250 onboard gpu
CPU: AMD Phenom II 555 BE 3.2GHz
Optical: Samsung Slim SATA DVD±RW
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500gb 7200rpm HDD
RAM: GeIL 4gb PC8500 DDR3
Etc: AZiO USB Bluetooth Adapter

Grand total: $456.26 shipped

Thoughts?

I would wait for the AMD apu cpu's (Fusion) to come out which is perfect for a HTPC build, have a look at this thread which has got a bit of info about them but if you are not willing to wait then there is nothing wrong with the stuff you have selected now.

Since you're planning to use this as a HTPC, perhaps a dedicated video card would be a good idea. It doesn't have to be any Crysis cruncher, but you'll appreciate the hardware video acceleration if you watch HD video. Also, is there a reason why you prefer a DVD writer instead of some cheapo BR drive?

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

I've been running XBMC on my $1000 laptop for a few months now and it feels like a real waste of equipment, so I'm looking to sell the laptop, buy an ultraportable laptop that I'll actually use AS a laptop, and build a HTPC.

The build below is what I've come up with so far. My goals are:
1. Small, quiet
2. Fast enough that I won't hit any ceiling anytime soon
3. Attractive, matches other A/V equipment in style (minimalist) /color (black)
4. As cheap as possible given the above requirements

i think you should get clearer on both what you actually need and want
atm im not sure if the intention is to build a good all round desktopish pc (which is what your current build looks like to me) a low power htpc or an all out htpc powerhouse

if you want to go towards the power sipping type of htpc id suggest an amd fusion
its a well rounded system that hardly uses any energy at all and to my knowledge is the cheapest and lowest powe solution that properly supports 23.976fps output
the first mini itxboards are allready available and cost between 80-150€ by the looks of it (cant be arsed to look up american prices)
my personall choice would be the asus passive cooled board that comes with 2 external and 2 internal usb3 ports for ~150€ (atm while it isnt actually available yet... likely to go down a bit once its available)
combine that with a case with a fanless psu (can be had for as little as 60€) and youre all set
http://www.anandtech.com/show/ ... supplants-ion-for-miniitx

however when you do that it might also be worth considering buying a subnotebook that has a good hdmi out and using that for both portable computing and htpcing

on the other end of the spectrum id currently go with a socket 1156 dual core setup (preferably with a cpu that supports accelerated aes) and some fairly high end graphics card that supports hdmi 1.4a and has enough shaders to do high quality deinterlacing

i've always liked the look of this form-factor: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Shuttle- ... f12c0a0aad400fdd0ff8edfdc
it looks sleek and it can also be mounted onto the back of most LCD TV's. it's also completely passive.

Quote from MadCatX :

Since you're planning to use this as a HTPC, perhaps a dedicated video card would be a good idea. It doesn't have to be any Crysis cruncher, but you'll appreciate the hardware video acceleration if you watch HD video. Also, is there a reason why you prefer a DVD writer instead of some cheapo BR drive?

As far as I know the HD4250 is entirely capable of playing 1080p HD. As I stated in the OP, I don't need a BR drive because I have a PS3 already.

Quote from Shotglass :

i think you should get clearer on both what you actually need and want
atm im not sure if the intention is to build a good all round desktopish pc (which is what your current build looks like to me) a low power htpc or an all out htpc powerhouse

if you want to go towards the power sipping type of htpc id suggest an amd fusion
its a well rounded system that hardly uses any energy at all and to my knowledge is the cheapest and lowest powe solution that properly supports 23.976fps output
the first mini itxboards are allready available and cost between 80-150€ by the looks of it (cant be arsed to look up american prices)
my personall choice would be the asus passive cooled board that comes with 2 external and 2 internal usb3 ports for ~150€ (atm while it isnt actually available yet... likely to go down a bit once its available)
combine that with a case with a fanless psu (can be had for as little as 60€) and youre all set
http://www.anandtech.com/show/ ... supplants-ion-for-miniitx

however when you do that it might also be worth considering buying a subnotebook that has a good hdmi out and using that for both portable computing and htpcing

on the other end of the spectrum id currently go with a socket 1156 dual core setup (preferably with a cpu that supports accelerated aes) and some fairly high end graphics card that supports hdmi 1.4a and has enough shaders to do high quality deinterlacing

Re: Zacate/Fusion, I've been eyeing it (would really love to see an Acer Revo R3700 w/ the Fusion APU) but the components aren't readily available over here yet.

I agree that this setup is kinda neither here nor there. For instance I could go with an X2 255 CPU for $30 less and it would still be plenty powerful for HTPC use, but I figured the $30 bump isn't much for the performance gain you get from the Phenom II 555 BE. But yeah, it's a bit weird to be saying I want headroom for futureproofing re: the CPU and then settling for the onboard GPU (even if it's currently good enough for HTPC use).

Essentially what I want is something that's 100% trouble-free for HTPC use, has room to grow with growing hardware requirements, and that I can also use to browse the web and do light gaming (i.e. platformer-type stuff, not FPSes) with. I really like the Mini-ITX form factor and would prefer to stick to it, but I know Micro ATX is a good deal cheaper (just built one for my mom at Christmas).

(If I wanted to go really super cheap for strictly XBMC use I could just get an Apple TV 2, but I think I want a bit more flexibility.)

Quote from MadCatX :

Since you're planning to use this as a HTPC, perhaps a dedicated video card would be a good idea. It doesn't have to be any Crysis cruncher, but you'll appreciate the hardware video acceleration if you watch HD video. Also, is there a reason why you prefer a DVD writer instead of some cheapo BR drive?

HD 4250 supports DXVA decoding for H.264 and VC-1.
Blu-Ray drive isn't needed in case you're doing backups on your main PC and then uploading to HTPC via SMB or anything else.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

As far as I know the HD4250 is entirely capable of playing 1080p HD. As I stated in the OP, I don't need a BR drive because I have a PS3 already.

judging by the number id guess it hasnt got the power necessary to do atis vector adaptive deinterlacing
also iirc the 4 series has limitations when it comes to refresh rate support

Quote :

Re: Zacate/Fusion, I've been eyeing it (would really love to see an Acer Revo R3700 w/ the Fusion APU) but the components aren't readily available over here yet.

well yes but were very close to availability

Quote :

Essentially what I want is something that's 100% trouble-free for HTPC use, has room to grow with growing hardware requirements, and that I can also use to browse the web and do light gaming (i.e. platformer-type stuff, not FPSes) with.

in that case id go with a socket 1156 build
should run with a ~20w idle power envelope and with a uatx mobo youd have the space to put in some decent add on cards for heavy video decoding dvb receive and stuff like that

Quote :

I really like the Mini-ITX form factor and would prefer to stick to it, but I know Micro ATX is a good deal cheaper (just built one for my mom at Christmas).

to my knowledge it isnt
you can buy a mini itx motherboard with integrated cpu for as little as ~100€ and all youll need is ram a hdd and a psu (which you can have built into a minitx case with 60w of passively cooled supply for as little as 50-60€) to make it run
with uatx youre looking at about that for the mobo alone plus cpu plus usually a larger psu etc

if you want something a little different this might be of interest
http://pden.zotac.com/index.ph ... m_virtuemart&Itemid=1
although the 9400 aka ion is hardly an ideal htpc graphics core

Most people say ION and ION2 work fine with 1080p, even w/ Atom chips, in XBMC using DXVA2 acceleration.

sure they do but theres more to a htpc gpu than just can it use dxva smoothly
theres stuff like support for 24p hdmi1.4a derinterlacing truehd-bitstreaming etc

Gotcha.

Well, I'll look into LGA1156 solutions, as well as Micro-ATX AMD stuff. I just wish this case/mobo had room for a low-profile vid card. :|

Who cares about deinterlacing?

None of blurays are interlaced, and for DVDs, even a 600 MHz Pentium III can deinterlace them just fine :|

Ok, so... after a bit of reconsidering, and staying with the Mini-ITX form factor...

[CASE + PSU] SilverStone SG05B Mini-ITX/DTX w/ 300W 80+ PSU ($94.99 + 0 AR)
[MOBO] ZOTAC LGA 1156 Mini ITX WiFi Intel Motherboard H55ITX-C-E ($109.99 + 0 AR)
[CPU] Intel Core i3-550 Clarkdale 3.2GHz 4MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 73W ($129.99 + 0)
[RAM] G.SKILL NS 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) ($20.99 + $0.99)
[HDD] Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST35 ... he SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" ($37.99 + 0)
[ETC] AZiO BTD-V201 USB 2.0 Micro Bluetooth Adapter ($19.99 + 0)

Total = $444.90 shipped ($419.90 AR)

...and I'll probably add a discrete video card later (HD 5770 or GT 430, I guess?)

Is not the purpose of HTPC to be queit. How you want to make it with such a CPU which consume 73W and discrete graphic you meantiod which wont be queit neither.

Whats the real purpose of your machine you are going to built?

CPUs don't make noise, and the stock cooler on the i3-550 is plenty quiet.

As for the video card, like I said, that will be a later addition (if it turns out I need it for some reason). The mobo/case allow for it, and I've heard of a 24fps bug involving the Intel graphics, but apparently that doesn't bug some people.

It might not be silent, but it will be quiet enough for my needs, effectively sitting behind the surround speakers.

I think its quite overkill for HTPC. If you want to use it mostly for net browsing on big sreen and film wathing then go with AMD APU CPUs. I think you should be able to purchase these motherboards with CPU no more then in a month.

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=9BmKhMwWCwqyl1lz
Completly silent, Bluetooh & Wifi included, HDMI output., etc....

However its your choise ofcourse. Just trying to tell you my view on that...

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Is not the purpose of HTPC to be queit. How you want to make it with such a CPU which consume 73W and discrete graphic you meantiod which wont be queit neither.

the whole system without a graphics card will consume no more than ~20w at idle and 60 tops during heavy work

yes, thats migt be true but I doubt you could make the CPU funless. I consider HTPC to be as much quiet as possible. Beside that the AMD solution would be in US I bet around 50-100 dollars cheaper.

yes maybe but then down the road youll eventually be stuck with not being able to decode certain formats that arent supported by the gpu which an i3 will happily do in software without breaking a sweat

building a htpc is very much a matter of preference and philisophy putting you either on the high end dual core intel side of the spectrum or the atom/fusion end of it
power consumption wise the difference is pretty much negligible as long as youre using it just as a htpc
although personally i would have chosen uatx with upgradeability in mind

Yeh, I agree about the different preferences when builduing HTPC.

With GPU accelaration nowdays I dont think any new format matter much. Look at flash accelaration. None of graphic cards have been developed in mind with that yet it working. I really would not be worried about that and by the time any new format will pop-up both machine will be obsolate.

Both solutions have PCI-E card slot so you can always upgrade. However Intel is very known for very bad driver support for any of integrated graphic cards. That`s fact unfortunately.

I really like about the AMD solution the fanless option.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

With GPU accelaration nowdays I dont think any new format matter much. Look at flash accelaration.

flash isnt a new format its just h264 in a container

Quote :

None of graphic cards have been developed in mind with that yet it working

yes they have

Quote :

I really would not be worried about that and by the time any new format will pop-up both machine will be obsolate.

a lot of gpus cant accelerate xvid which is an increasingly popular format for 720p and 1080p
this is certainly true for ion and afaik every nvidia card out there
im not sure atm if its also true for fusion (iirc the 6 series ati cards do supportaccelerated divx decoding but im not sure if that decoding pipeline is part of brazos or not)

Quote :

However Intel is very known for very bad driver support for any of integrated graphic cards. That`s fact unfortunately.

that is just not true particularly when it comes to linux where ati has to my knowledge been the worst while intel has been the best overall (although im not sure what the current status of the formerly broken clarkdale gpu drivers is)

Quote :

I really like about the AMD solution the fanless option.

sure but since a friend recently showed me that his air cooled hexacore i7 rig is for all intents and purposes inaudible from as little as about a metre away i dont consider this a huge problem for pretty much any htpc setup especially when you use it with a tv and not a projector and even then the projector is most likely gonna be louder

I meant they have been able to find solution how to accelarate video in flash over GPU. You trying to teach me like a small kid

Again...with GPU accelaration and I am not talking about video decoding engine you are more flexible nowdays. The GPU in AMD APU has enough power to accelarate even some new format.

Yes AMD E-350 with integrated GPU has UVD3 video engine which accelarate xvid/divx as well.

I guess the heatsink on the i7 CPU was quite big

I'm pretty much with shotglass on this. Good GPU is definitely worth the money, even if it is some low-end HD 6xxx. I also find the fanless solution kinda pointless, I have a Thermaltake Frío with two 80mm fans on my OC'ed i7 and it's actually quite silent. If you watch a movie, the CPU fan noise will certainly be the last of your concerns.

BTW, Intel GPU support on Linux's been sucking balls for quite a long time, even ATI's doing much better jobs with their Catalyst.

Quote :

I meant they have been able to find solution how to accelarate video in flash over GPU. You trying to teach me like a small kid

They didn't really find it, they just took advantage of DXVA to accelerate H264 encoded video, it doesn't matter whether it's WMP, XBMC or Flash that's using the acceleration.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

You trying to teach me like a small kid

i kinda have to since:

Quote :

Again...with GPU accelaration and I am not talking about video decoding engine you are more flexible nowdays. The GPU in AMD APU has enough power to accelarate even some new format.

theres a reason gpus use dedicated hardware for video decoding and its because low end gpu just arent powerful enough for opencl decoding
low end ati gpus dont even have the shader performance to do vector adaptive deinterlacing and thats just one step in video decoding

Quote :

I guess the heatsink on the i7 CPU was quite big

sure it was but thats a cpu with 3 times the cores that dwb wants to buy and each of them runs at a higher base clock