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Post by Chuck Elliot on Nov 14, 2012 22:22:37 GMT -5
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Post by jdskycaster on Nov 14, 2012 23:45:23 GMT -5
That shoud be a really nice build. My son and I finished up building two of them recently. One was an upgrade of a system we built several years ago. This is my primary machine as well as a media server for the whole house. Upgraded it to Core i7-3770, 16GB RAM, Z77-Pro mobo, XFX R7870 graphics, 128GB SSD, moving it to a new case with an upgraded power supply this weekend.
The second was a dedicated HTPC for the HT. Since this one will be doing playback only duty I went with Core i3-3220, 4GB RAM, onboard graphics, 64GB SSD, Silverstone Grandia case and Z75-Pro mobo.
Be great to hear some input on your Windows 8 experience. I stuck with Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit on both.
Good luck with your build,
JD
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Post by knucklehead on Nov 14, 2012 23:47:30 GMT -5
Have you had any experience with Win 8 yet? I bought the $39 download special for the Win 8 Pro upgrade version. I hated it. I'm so happy I thought to clone Win 7 Home Premium to a spare drive before overlaying Win 8 on the Win 7 SSD main drive.
I don't have a touch screen since I use a 42" LCD TV for my monitor which doubles as my TV and movie display as well. Win 8 is probably great for a touch screen monitor - not so good for what I have. It would seem at first glance that MS has simply overlaid an ipad/iphone startup menu over Win 7. I think the MS version is called Metro?
Anyway I built my HTPC starting with a Lian Li case that can take a full sized ATX case which I have - the best addition was a 128GB Intel 330 SSD. Fast quiet and very reliable. And the case with all its fans are quiet too. Even with a 6 core AMD processor and full size graphics card. No on-board graphics for me - although I do use the 5.1 sound system which works very well - good enough to sell a very good HT Omega Claro 7.1 card.
I'm waiting for the prices to come down on SSDs so I can buy another 2 and run a raid 5 array. Talk about bullet proof! I keep the swap file on a 500gb drive and watch what I download to keep the drive from filling up too badly. I'm at 52gb on the SSD and it doesn't vary much from a year ago when I first cloned it for prime time use. And I've had the same Win 7 install going for about 3 years now IIRC.
Good luck with the build - thats at least half the fun IMO.
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Post by Chuck Elliot on Nov 15, 2012 8:41:40 GMT -5
Like you I got the $39 upgrade to Windows 8. With The addition of the Classic Shell, I don't find Windows 8 much different than Windows 7 and it saves me $100 more to get Windows 7. If it becomes a problem I'll go back.
On a SSD boot build I also move the temp files to the HHD. This can be done by changing the TMP and TEMP environment variables for both the system and the user to point to the HHD in the control panel. Another item to change is the location of the browser's cache files.
One cool feature of the Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI is that it has 2 hardware network ports and can be configured to use the wireless to form a access point on these ports. This way non-wireless units that have ethernet can use these ports.
For the time being I'm going to see if the built in H4000 Intel graphics will do the job for playing movies. If not I will add a graphics card.
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Post by ribbonking on Nov 15, 2012 9:28:47 GMT -5
After I installed Windows 8 I also went with the Classic Shell start button. Set the machine up so it boots to the Desktop rather than the Metro interface.
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Post by copperband on Nov 15, 2012 10:32:22 GMT -5
thinking about build one cheap PC for digital music/songs, any suggestion for a motherboard with coaxial audio output around $100?
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Post by Chuck Elliot on Nov 15, 2012 11:11:45 GMT -5
thinking about build one cheap PC for digital music/songs, any suggestion for a motherboard with coaxial audio output around $100? Most of the less expensive mobos only have toslink. The Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI that I'm using is only $129 at Amazon and it has Wi-Fi built in and USB3. Add a low cost i3 and some memory and you're in business. It's also a ITX board with a very small footprint requiring a small case. IMO I don't find any difference between Toslink and Coax. The only difference in the circuitry is that the SPDIF signal turns a LED on/off to transmit the signal and it is then received by a detector that converts the signal back to SPDIF. I don't see how this could induce any jitter in the signal - speed of light is speed of light regardless of copper or fiber. Plus you get complete ground isolation between the computer and the DAC. |
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Post by jdskycaster on Nov 15, 2012 11:28:19 GMT -5
For the time being I'm going to see if the built in H4000 Intel graphics will do the job for playing movies. If not I will add a graphics card. My experiment with the HD2500 graphics has been a complete success for movie playback. It has handled everything I have thrown at it so HD4000 will be no issue at all. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2012 11:37:09 GMT -5
> thinking about build one cheap PC for digital music/songs, any suggestion for a motherboard with coaxial audio output around $100?
Since wifi is so fast now, and the music files and movies all reside on fileservers; I'm wondering why a pad or even phone couldn't read the fileserver and spool the music to the system; perhaps thru an Apple TV? i.e. make the remote control, be the PCHT... Heck the cpu in my phone is more powerful than the cpu in my pc!
Of course if xmc-1 ran Plex, it would simplify everything.
/b
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Post by cburbs on Nov 15, 2012 15:15:53 GMT -5
thinking about build one cheap PC for digital music/songs, any suggestion for a motherboard with coaxial audio output around $100? Have you looked at the small Foxconn PCs - Or take a look www.htpc-reviews.com/complete-systems at smaller prebuilt systems. |
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Post by GreenKiwi on Nov 15, 2012 19:13:13 GMT -5
I'm thinking the new NUC intel machines could be interesting too.
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Post by Chuck Elliot on Nov 16, 2012 9:14:03 GMT -5
Most of the small machines are not very robust.
I don't know about you guys, but I have 6 different family machines that I need to take care of. A secondary role for this new machine will be as the repository for all backups of other machines.
The Fractal Node 304 Case will hold up to 6 drives internally in the small footprint. I am starting with a SSD as the boot drive and 3 3TB drives in a RAID 5 configuration. This will give me 6TB of storage.
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Post by GreenKiwi on Nov 16, 2012 11:28:58 GMT -5
I think the NUC is aimed at the macMini. But I agree many small systems are very robust, but for some htpc rolls, they are perfect. More than an Apple TV, but not wasting their power idle most of the time.
We'll see where their pricing comes in.
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Post by copperband on Nov 16, 2012 14:30:36 GMT -5
I want to keep my htpc <500 need advice on this one: www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2826919&csid=_61Prices is atttractive for 8 core, questions: -it has center, side and rear speakers audio jack, how do I connect these to speakers? cable size same as normal headphone cable? -How do I know if I can add an optical/coax sound card for digital music? -it does not have 3.0 USB, is it a big deal? How much if I add one? With windows 8 around $100 + may be a wireless N adapter I may be able to make the 500 budget. |
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Post by GreenKiwi on Nov 16, 2012 15:22:04 GMT -5
Oh other thing to think about is noise and whether that is an issue.
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Post by Chuck Elliot on Nov 16, 2012 17:11:59 GMT -5
Critical parts are here. I can start building tonight!  |
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Post by Chuck Elliot on Nov 18, 2012 12:28:40 GMT -5
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Post by AudioHTIT on Nov 18, 2012 17:51:01 GMT -5
Nice little mobo, I'll be anxious to see the case too - will it have another fan? Is that the stock fan for an ivy bridge? It looks big, what's the size?
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Post by Chuck Elliot on Nov 18, 2012 20:08:07 GMT -5
Nice little mobo, I'll be anxious to see the case too - will it have another fan? Is that the stock fan for an ivy bridge? It looks big, what's the size? Fan looks big because mobo is so small. Just the standard that came with the i5. Seem to run pretty cool, but I may swap it for another if the cores run too hot once in the case! Case has 2 fans in front blowing on the HD cage and an exit fan on the rear. PWR supply fan draw in through the bottom.   |
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Post by copperband on Nov 19, 2012 11:06:00 GMT -5
I want to keep my htpc <500 need advice on this one: www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2826919&csid=_61Prices is atttractive for 8 core, questions: -it has center, side and rear speakers audio jack, how do I connect these to speakers? cable size same as normal headphone cable? -How do I know if I can add an optical/coax sound card for digital music? -it does not have 3.0 USB, is it a big deal? How much if I add one? With windows 8 around $100 + may be a wireless N adapter I may be able to make the 500 budget. still waiting for answers to my questions....... |
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