HTPC Computer Build

[ATTACK_HAMSTER]

As myself and my good lady increasingly watch more and more content online, it is becoming increasingly obvious that we need the internet hooked up to our TV. Our TV is a number of years old and it was connected to the Internet via a dongle, but as this was complete dog turd, we didn't really use it. So now I’m thinking of hooking up the TV to the internet Via a HTPC (home theatre personal computer) which I am intending to build myself. Although the budget isn’t a problem, I don’t want to spend too much money, as I see it as a fun challenge to build a HTPC as cheaply as possible, maybe below £150!

Obviously the HTPC doesn't need to be that powerful, as it will only be used for video streaming in 1080p & general browser work. I would love to use it as a retro game station, but with windows being stupidly expensive to implement in this project, i doubt many of the “old” games I have in mind would work with Ubuntu, which is going to be the OS I install because it’s free!

Although I haven’t nailed down the specifics yet, I’m looking at the following (will update with links when I decide on specifics):

• ASUS mATX board (never had a problem with ASUS)
• Cheap Intel core duo
• Cheap small nvidia card (never going back to AMD, had too many problems over the years)
• 2-4gig of ram
• Cheap HDD
• Wireless network card
• Slim line case (probably with PSU included)
• Small wireless keyboard with trackpad

Whilst I can probably scrap the graphics card, I am not too sure if a cheap core duo with Intel HD can handle 1080p, as I have read conflicting opinions across the net. My other problem is finding a small wireless keyboard at a price which won’t cost more than the build itself!

If any of you have undergone a similar project recently, it would be good to hear of your experiences, or if you have any general advice about specific parts that would be welcome too.

[pjknibbs]

I was going to suggest you'd be better off getting an AMD A4 series CPU, because the integrated graphics on those are far better than Intel ones, but I see you've already ruled out AMD so I guess I can't do that. You're going to struggle to get this anywhere close to that £150 budget, then--the cheapest Intel dual-core CPU available at the moment is the Celeron G1840, which is nearly £40 on its own!

[Rednoahl]

I have an old laptop that I got from CEX and I installed Linux mint on that. It had windows on it but could only play 720p, so I was pleasantly surprised when Linux mint could play 1080p. I use vlc player for pretty much everything with no problems ever in the three years I have had it. The only thing I don't like is the dvd player because it's really noisy.

I was thinking of building a HTPC, but the laptop option seemed cheaper and less hassle.

[Morkonan]

I know diddly about Ubuntu. But, I'd consider more RAM than that. You can also take a look at cheap cards that are geared towards streaming, just so long as Ubuntu doesn't have any issues or driver-support problems with them.

You might want to consider getting a good hard-drive for recording/storing movies and the like.

OR, you could take a look at some of the in-home streaming services. Roku, etc, that have cloud-storage and such.

Win7 is the last Windows OS to support Windows Media Center, which is sort of a shame, since it works pretty well. I run it, from time to time, while working on projects, just to listen/watch the news and such.

Not sure if you're interested or not, but Smart TVs are pretty handy in this aspect. Connect to any common service fairly easily, native support for all popular 'net stream sources, etc.. I don't use mine for that because when I'm watching TV, I'm watching TV Programming. But, I've watched Youtube/net stuff with mine with no issues, streaming right from the WiFi from my network.

[Chips]

Pine64

https://www.pine64.com/

$29 should see you okay.... does 4k, has several gb of memory, flash drive boot up, cheap to run yet powerful enough to be your Home Theatre? Apparently if you use KODI you may have issues though, so...

[ATTACK_HAMSTER]

I was going to suggest you'd be better off getting an AMD A4 series CPU, because the integrated graphics on those are far better than Intel ones, but I see you've already ruled out AMD so I guess I can't do that. You're going to struggle to get this anywhere close to that £150 budget

In my blinkered annoyance with AMD i definitely neglected to look at the cpu's, thanks for the heads up, i will be having a deeper look at them this evening. I can't see me hitting below 150 either, but i like the challenge of trying

I use vlc player for pretty much everything with no problems ever in the three years I have had it.

I haven't started to look at a media players yet, so thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

I know diddly about Ubuntu. But, I'd consider more RAM than that. You can also take a look at cheap cards that are geared towards streaming, just so long as Ubuntu doesn't have any issues or driver-support problems with them.

You might want to consider getting a good hard-drive for recording/storing movies and the like.

OR, you could take a look at some of the in-home streaming services. Roku, etc, that have cloud-storage and such.

Win7 is the last Windows OS to support Windows Media Center, which is sort of a shame, since it works pretty well. I run it, from time to time, while working on projects, just to listen/watch the news and such.

Not sure if you're interested or not, but Smart TVs are pretty handy in this aspect. Connect to any common service fairly easily, native support for all popular 'net stream sources, etc.. I don't use mine for that because when I'm watching TV, I'm watching TV Programming. But, I've watched Youtube/net stuff with mine with no issues, streaming right from the WiFi from my network.

Having never used Ubuntu before, driver support could be an issue, but i'm a cross my fingers and hope for the best kinda guy, so we shall see

I had a look at some of the streaming services and for some reason they didn't capture my enthusiasm. One of my main turn offs with smart TV's at the moment is the app support, i have a Samsung TV and only a few years after purchase they discontinued support for Youtube and a few other apps, real pain in the backside!

Pine64

https://www.pine64.com/

$29 should see you okay.... does 4k, has several gb of memory, flash drive boot up, cheap to run yet powerful enough to be your Home Theatre? Apparently if you use KODI you may have issues though, so...

Definitely be taking a look at that Chips, thanks for the link, hadn't heard of it before.

Thanks for the replies guys, it is much appreciated, you have definitely given me some things to think about.

[burger1]

I wouldn't go too low with your computer specs. I use an asus x55u laptop for watching netflix, shomi, hulu, crackle, etc... It takes the computer some time to load regular webpages and a bit longer for things like netflix. So basically I go to a webpage wait approx 4-20 secs then wait for the rest of the page to load, etc... You might also find it hard to stream some services which aren't very well optimized. I think cbs.com and showtime were terrible on the laptop?


laptop specs
win 10 64 bit
amd c-70 apu 1 ghz dual core
radeon 7290m (on the cpu)
4 gigs ram
probably a 5400 rpm 500 gb hard drive

[Santi]

Very interesting thread, will a Raspberry Pi 3 set up be any good for a HTPC?

[pjknibbs]

In my blinkered annoyance with AMD i definitely neglected to look at the cpu's, thanks for the heads up, i will be having a deeper look at them this evening. I can't see me hitting below 150 either, but i like the challenge of trying

If you *are* interested in possibly going AMD for this, as well as the A4, A6 etc. class CPUs, they do a couple which are pretty much tailor-made for this role--example being the 5350, which is a 2.05GHz quad-core with integrated graphics. Not particularly powerful, but it also only has a thermal design power of 25W, making it much easier to get the system to run cool and quiet. Main issue is that those CPU/GPU combos use the Socket AM1, which is *only* used for those CPUs and thus you're severely limited in what motherboards you can choose.

[pixel]

You could try an Amazon Fire stick. Only £35 and you can download apps for Netflix, youtube etc. I got my retired dad one for Xmas, he loves it. Has radio remote control so don't even need to point the controller.

link

[Chips]

Should have mentioned, there are also near full built systems like:

Gigabyte Brix BXBT-2807

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Brix- ... s=brick+pc

Specs on their own page are better:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=5038#ov

It'd probably suit need, and comes with vesa mount, so can even strap it to the TV.

[burger1]

Should have mentioned, there are also near full built systems like:

Gigabyte Brix BXBT-2807

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Brix- ... s=brick+pc

Specs on their own page are better:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=5038#ov

It'd probably suit need, and comes with vesa mount, so can even strap it to the TV.

The gigabyte thing mounts 2.5" hard drives. 2.5" hard drives seem much more expensive than regular hard drives. Adding a 1tb hard drive adds 200 pounds to the price.

I think you could buy parts and mix/match stuff. Dual cores and the parts that go with them should be cheap. There's quite a few systems for sale on amazon.co.uk . Most have low capacity 160 gb etc... hard drives, no video cards or wireless. They do seem to come with windows though. I would upgrade them to win 10 if the free upgrade is still available. If the hdd crashes then at least you won't need to buy windows again as long as the mainboard is ok. Search for " desktop ".


examples

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Windows-OptiPl ... ds=desktop


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiPlex- ... ds=desktop

[burger1]

I wouldn't go too low with your computer specs. I use an asus x55u laptop for watching netflix, shomi, hulu, crackle, etc... It takes the computer some time to load regular webpages and a bit longer for things like netflix. So basically I go to a webpage wait approx 4-20 secs then wait for the rest of the page to load, etc... You might also find it hard to stream some services which aren't very well optimized. I think cbs.com and showtime were terrible on the laptop?


laptop specs
win 10 64 bit
amd c-70 apu 1 ghz dual core
radeon 7290m (on the cpu)
4 gigs ram
probably a 5400 rpm 500 gb hard drive

Tested shomi on max settings and get about 2 fps on the laptop. I have a couple dual cores and video cards lying around. I might test them. Probably try an e8500 cpu + 9800 gtx card with win xp.



The following computer won't play netflix on it's lowest settings. Shomi might not even support win xp so no experiment there.

P4 2.53 ghz single core cpu
geforce 6200 graphics card
1.5 g ram
win xp sp3


I'd have to remove the power supply from my gaming computer to test the e8500 so I won't be testing it.

[pjknibbs]

The gigabyte thing mounts 2.5" hard drives. 2.5" hard drives seem much more expensive than regular hard drives. Adding a 1tb hard drive adds 200 pounds to the price.

I think you may be looking at an SSD there--a 1Tb spinning rust 2.5" drive can be had for £45:

http://www.shop.bt.com/products/toshiba ... -BPR1.html

[korio]

Have you ever consider a chromecast? i have one for my TV and when i need to see anything i just send what i wanna see from my phone or even my PC

Check it and see if it fits your needs, its pretty cheap.

[ATTACK_HAMSTER]

I wouldn't go too low with your computer specs.

Certainly agree. One of the reason for building it myself was to try and beef it up slightly.

Very interesting thread, will a Raspberry Pi 3 set up be any good for a HTPC?

I'm sure i have read some articles where people have made it work. Maybe i should take another look into it, as they do look a great deal of fun to tinker about with.

If you *are* interested in possibly going AMD for this, as well as the A4, A6 etc. class CPUs, they do a couple which are pretty much tailor-made for this role--example being the 5350, which is a 2.05GHz quad-core with integrated graphics. Not particularly powerful, but it also only has a thermal design power of 25W, making it much easier to get the system to run cool and quiet. Main issue is that those CPU/GPU combos use the Socket AM1, which is *only* used for those CPUs and thus you're severely limited in what motherboards you can choose.

I am definitely interested in going AMD, especially as i have found an ASUS mobo with the AM1 socket, which is cheaper than the intel variant i was looking at! Thanks again for the heads up, info and advice, will be doing a lot more reading up on them.

Should have mentioned, there are also near full built systems like: Gigabyte Brix BXBT-2807

It does look nice, shame the ram and hdd don't come with the price. I noticed a few people saying the wifi doesn't work too well with Ubuntu, but then again i suppose i could have that issue if i build my own!

The following computer won't play netflix on it's lowest settings. Shomi might not even support win xp so no experiment there.

P4 2.53 ghz single core cpu
geforce 6200 graphics card
1.5 g ram
win xp sp3

Few months back i dug out an old p4 machine with a couple of gig of ram and an old nvidia card, i was intending to give it away to a friends daughter so she could use it for homework and the net, i was amazed how poorly it ran a browser and in particular youtube!

Chromecast & Amazon Firestick

I have had a look at them and they would be great for streaming, but i really want the functionality of a desktop like browsing experience with a wireless keyboard if that makes any sense.

Thanks again for all your input chaps, i will update as and when i finally make a decision. The planning stage is always more fun than the putting the posh lego bits together

[Chips]

The gigabyte thing mounts 2.5" hard drives. 2.5" hard drives seem much more expensive than regular hard drives. Adding a 1tb hard drive adds 200 pounds to the price.

Eh?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-inch-5 ... hard+drive

£45 for 1Tb HDD. I personally have one of the Brix, I put in a HDD from a laptop that had died for other reasons; funnily enough, memory was similarly sourced

Then again I also have the Pine 64 and the Raspberry Pi B.

[burger1]

The gigabyte thing mounts 2.5" hard drives. 2.5" hard drives seem much more expensive than regular hard drives. Adding a 1tb hard drive adds 200 pounds to the price.

I think you may be looking at an SSD there--a 1Tb spinning rust 2.5" drive can be had for £45:

http://www.shop.bt.com/products/toshiba ... -BPR1.html

Might be a mistake or a rip off artist on amazon. GB-BXBT-1900 312.46 with 1tb hdd 89.99 with no hdd

[pjknibbs]

This one?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Brix- ... -BXBT-1900

Not only does that include 4Gb of RAM as well as the 1Tb HDD, but it also comes with an installed copy of Windows 8.1 x64, which is fairly expensive in itself. The base £89.99 model doesn't include any of those things, so they all have to be purchased and installed separately. Tallying it up:

Base Brix: £89.99
Windows 8.1: £69.99
1Tb HDD: £45
4Gb SO-DIMM RAM: £30

Total comes to £234.98, so yes, the pre-built model has a markup, but it's nowhere near £200.