Building a small but powerful media centre

[Wtootell]

Hi all,

Am currently in the planning stage of throwing together a small media centre that is capable of streaming, storing and playing movies. Just like to get some feedback on my proposed specs list and any recommendations.

It is currently this - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3GHmH

Thanks in advance

 

[Traciatim]

Are you going to be doing anything that uses that processor at all? It would make far more sense in an HTPC that isn't gaming or doing some type of work to do something like a Pentium Gxxxx or and AMD A series CPU. Pretty much any machine made today can stream, store, and play movies at 1080p.

Personally I would buy a 120 or so GB SSD, use it as a boot drive and all your applications and then use the spinning disk strictly for storing media. It would avoid situations where your drive needs to read a file while it's streaming since none of the programs or OS would be on the spinning disk. It would also make it boot, hibernate, and launch applications super snappy so it would feel like a nice fast machine.

 

[cdrkf]

Hi all,

Am currently in the planning stage of throwing together a small media centre that is capable of streaming, storing and playing movies. Just like to get some feedback on my proposed specs list and any recommendations.

It is currently this - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3GHmH

Thanks in advance

That's a pretty high spec machine for that job...

Personally I'd look at an AMD APU for that- as the integrated graphics are somewhat better than Intel's (in terms of performance amd more importantly drivers support). Give you're main uses are media the better GPU is probably desirable over the faster CPU cores.

The best APU at the moment is the A10 7850 K, although if you want to keep cost down the previous generation A10 6700 is a good option as well (although it uses an older graphics technology). They both use a bit more power than the Intel option (although the 6700 is quite efficient actually) however nothing that the liquid cooler can't handle easily.

 

[davedurg09]

This is what I recently bought and it works great as a HTPC (I run windows 7 + XBMC on it)

Intel NUC D54250WYKH i5-4250U Haswell with 2.5 inch HDD/SSD Support, UK Power Cord
- £289.82

Corsair Memory 4GB Value Select DDR3 SO-DIMM 1600 MHz 11-11-11-28 Dual Channel Laptop
- £30.48

Samsung MZ-7TE120BW 840 EVO 120GB Basic SSD SATA 3 7mm UltraSlim 2.5" With Software Suite PC/MAC
- £62.21

Total £382.51

You can put 8 or even 16 gb of ram in it if you wanted.

Can also put an M-sata SSD in there as well as the 2.5" SSD or use M-Sata + a large capacity mechanical 2.5" drive.

 

[Wtootell]

Yeah, I may have gone a bit power mad... but I am also halfway through an all out gaming pc so I don't know any better? I like the idea of the APU main concern was the video encoding being quick enough. Also as it is going to be enclosed in a TV stand I want it to run quite a cool.

Also the built in wireless on the motherboard I think is a nice touch especially as the networking at home is shocking. Can anyone recommend a good built in wireless motherboard that is similar but lower specs then?

Ta

 

[davedurg09]

You can also add an internal wireless card to my suggestion. Its also tiny, would fit in a shoe box never mind a TV stand.

 

[cdrkf]

Yeah, I may have gone a bit power mad... but I am also halfway through an all out gaming pc so I don't know any better? I like the idea of the APU main concern was the video encoding being quick enough. Also as it is going to be enclosed in a TV stand I want it to run quite a cool.

Also the built in wireless on the motherboard I think is a nice touch especially as the networking at home is shocking. Can anyone recommend a good built in wireless motherboard that is similar but lower specs then?

Ta

If you're going with the Intel build, I'd recommend dropping a discreet graphics card in there. An Nvidia GTX 750 is good and low enough power (you should be able to find a single slot variant). That also opens you're options with respect to encoding as it gives you access to Cuda as well as Open CL and Quick Sync (depending on what software and formats you're going to be encoding + software you'll use depends which is most useful).

As for the wifi, I'd personally avoid it altogether. I quite like the mains network adaptors- it allows you to use a LAN connection via the mains cabling in your house (so no ugly cables) and is much more stable and reliable for things like streaming than using wifi.

 

[Wtootell]

I have used the PoE else where in the house, however my home theatre runs through no end of daisy chained power cables so I want to avoid any more cabling.

So I'm looking at this as a scaled down version of the previous and about £200 less

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3GJ27

Not PoE the other one

 

[cdrkf]

I have used the PoE else where in the house, however my home theatre runs through no end of daisy chained power cables so I want to avoid any more cabling.

So I'm looking at this as a scaled down version of the previous and about £200 less

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3GJ27

Not PoE the other one

An AMD APU would be faster than that... if you want to *encode* video I think you need a better cpu- I think Intel disables quick sync on the Pentium Chips. An i3 might be better.

 

[Wtootell]

An AMD APU would be faster than that... if you want to *encode* video I think you need a better cpu- I think Intel disables quick sync on the Pentium Chips. An i3 might be better.

Ok so I will swap the CPU for the 5800K APU, which are dirt cheap, same motherboard, and 4GB rest is as was. Comes to about £300.

Thanks for the advice