Home Theater Personal Computer

[thulsu]

Hi, first time posting

I am building a cheap HTPC for use on a 46" 1080p 120hz LCD television. I plan on streaming movies and browsing the internet mostly and no gaming for the time being. I have researched a list of components for this purpose and would very much appreciate any advice, input or corrections from knowledgeable members. Thank You

GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H LINK
AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz LINK
CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V LINK
Kingston HyperX 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 1066 Model KHX8500D2/2G LINK
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive LINK
ASUS Black 24X 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner LINK
Rosewill R101-P-BK 120mm Fan MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case LINK

Windows 7 Home Premium


BTW: I plan on using the motherboards HDMI output to connect to the tv. If anyone can think of problems this might incur, please let me know.

 

[orihS ‪‪‪Shiro]

I've noticed that motherboard's IGP to lag sometimes playing HD video.
(I have two of those motherboards, one hooked to an Athlon II X2 240, the other to a Phenom II X2 550.)
It will occasionally lag for a few seconds or skip while playing Blu-ray quality video.

I recommend getting a cheaper motherboard like the Asus 780L and buying a dedicated graphics card, if I were you, I'd probably get an ATI 5570, for smoother playback.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...4131341&cm_re=ati_5570-_-14-131-341-_-Product

Would work just fine.

 

[skylinegtrv98]

I actually think that is a great mobo...infact I have used it in my own personal HTPC... and I had no problems with the onboard graphics when doing HD playback...I was using Media player classic with coreavc codec....Eventually i did upgrade to a dedicated video card because I wanted to play some games....but if you are just using it for video playback it should work wonderfully, plus I really like that it has optical audio out ......Ohh and the HDMI output works great when going to your TV...that is how I ran it before I got my graphics card...

Just one thing I would make a slight suggestion about.....do you plan on downloading videos and movies to store on your hdd? If you plan on doing this I suggest possibly getting a smaller primary HDD, and a larger secondary hdd for storage...That way if anything happens to your primary drive you don't have to worry about losing anything stored on your secondary drive.. Personally I started with a 500GB primary drive, and now i have 2 additional 1TB drives and one 2TB drive...if I had thought about it I would have gotten a smaller primary drive and saved some money since now I pretty much keep all my media and anything of value (music, pictures ...etc...) on my secondary drives.

 

[orihS ‪‪‪Shiro]

I actually think that is a great mobo...infact I have used it in my own personal HTPC... and I had no problems with the onboard graphics when doing HD playback...I was using Media player classic with coreavc codec....Eventually i did upgrade to a dedicated video card because I wanted to play some games....but if you are just using it for video playback it should work wonderfully, plus I really like that it has optical audio out ......Ohh and the HDMI output works great when going to your TV...that is how I ran it before I got my graphics card...

Just one thing I would make a slight suggestion about.....do you plan on downloading videos and movies to store on your hdd? If you plan on doing this I suggest possibly getting a smaller primary HDD, and a larger secondary hdd for storage...That way if anything happens to your primary drive you don't have to worry about losing anything stored on your secondary drive.. Personally I started with a 500GB primary drive, and now i have 2 additional 1TB drives and one 2TB drive...if I had thought about it I would have gotten a smaller primary drive and saved some money since now I pretty much keep all my media and anything of value (music, pictures ...etc...) on my secondary drives.

You were playing blu-ray movies on the 785G?
And you didn't notice any stuttering at all?
What size monitor were you using?
I used a 24" 1920x1200 monitor to watch blu-ray movies with two 785G motherboards and both of them had stutter and lag at some points in the movies.

I was using CCCP and VLC.

 

[skylinegtrv98]

I was watching 720p and 1080p BluRay Rips (as I do not have a bluray drive in my current build since I watch them on my PS3)....I watched them on my 42" plasma and also on my 46" LCD with resolutions of 720p on my plasma and 1080p on my LCD....I think your issue could be with VLC media player...because that did cause some inconsistent playback for me...once i started to use Media player classic with the coreavc codec everything thing worked wonderfully and now that is all i use for HD playback...Coreavc codec was really what made the difference because Media player alone doesn't seem to work all that great either ...I only upgraded my video card because I wanted to play some games...ohh and actually i was using the previous model of this board that had the 780G chipset ....ohh and just a thought...when using the onboard graphics processor i did overclock it a bit and increased the shared memory with it....I dunno how much of a difference that made but it all worked fine for me...

here are the specs on what I am currently running in my HTPC...

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Newegg.com - Rosewill R114A-BLK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 400W Power Supply - Computer Cases
power supply was later changed to:
Newegg.com - Rosewill Stallion Series RD500-2DB 500W ATX12V Power Supply - Power Supplies
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Desktop Memory
Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100265HDMI Radeon HD 4830 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
of course i have a dvd drive as well as 4.5TB of internal storage via 2 1Tb drive and 1 2Tb drive and a 500GB primary drive

 

[Puddle Jumper]

You were playing blu-ray movies on the 785G?
And you didn't notice any stuttering at all?
What size monitor were you using?
I used a 24" 1920x1200 monitor to watch blu-ray movies with two 785G motherboards and both of them had stutter and lag at some points in the movies.

I was using CCCP and VLC.

The players you were using must not support hardware decoding since a Spepron + 780g can handle blu-rays without a problem.

@thulsu:
Since you don't plan on gaming you could get by with using a Atom 330+ION system. They are significantly slower than the AMD setup you picked out but still have enough power for HD video playback and have the advantage of using much less power and producing less heat.

Newegg.com - JetWay JNC63P-330-LF Intel Atom 330 1.6GHz Dual Core NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo

 

[thulsu]

Thank you all for your input and advice, I am finding it all very helpful in creating my HTPC.
I have considered changing the type of HDD though to a more quite, cooler model even if slower rpm, however if anyone can see any problems this might cause please let me know (for example bottlenecking).

Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EARS 1TB 5400 RPM 64MB Hard Drive

 

[skylinegtrv98]

Thank you all for your input and advice, I am finding it all very helpful in creating my HTPC.
I have considered changing the type of HDD though to a more quite, cooler model even if slower rpm, however if anyone can see any problems this might cause please let me know (for example bottlenecking).

]

Personally I would never go for a slower RPM drive as it would cause a decrease in your computers performance, and think about it, why wouldn't you want your new computer to be the best it could be? if you are concerned about HDD noise I don't think it is really much of an issue...I mean depending on the size of your room, and the distance you are from the computer....especially when you are watching a movie ( I am assuming some sort of surround sound will be used) I know when i am watching movies it is hard to hear much of anything else other than the movie...

Ohh and just a lil suggestion...I know I didn't see it in your build ...but I would think about getting a wireless keyboard and mouse, or wireless keyboard with touchpad...that way you can keep your computer further away and not have to worry about running wires for the keyboard and mouse