kazoo
Emo VIPs 
Posts: 359
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Post by kazoo on Feb 19, 2014 8:40:48 GMT -5
One thing I was looking into was a wireless keyboard with a touch pad built in. I think this would give me good control. Big, but I think I could live with it.
I want to thank everyone for their input. I think I found what I was looking for that will do what I want. I am thinking of going with a Gateway tower. I5 processor, 8GB ram, 6 USB ports, wireless, HDMI port, 1TB HD. This will give me flexibility down the road to add a different video card or sound card if needed. Also the price is right.
Thanks,
John
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Post by yves on Feb 19, 2014 15:02:10 GMT -5
One thing I was looking into was a wireless keyboard with a touch pad built in. I think this would give me good control. Big, but I think I could live with it. Some aren't really that big. |
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Post by djoel on Feb 19, 2014 15:42:34 GMT -5
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Post by solidstate on Feb 22, 2014 21:31:28 GMT -5
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Post by solidstate on Feb 22, 2014 21:42:44 GMT -5
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Post by Chuck Elliot on Feb 22, 2014 22:18:37 GMT -5
Love to know more of what you think about this box moving forward. |
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Post by solidstate on Feb 22, 2014 23:38:39 GMT -5
Love to know more of what you think about this box moving forward. I'll make a video but I'm only a one man show so I'll have to juggle my tablet to show you anything... |
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Post by solidstate on Feb 27, 2014 23:16:38 GMT -5
Love to know more of what you think about this box moving forward. I made a video with my new tablet but I forgot to hit record for part of it! doh! Anyway it's a great little PC for sure and it can run any video I've thrown at it including HW decoding of 4k. The 3D performance isn't that great but it's what I expected. |
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Post by rogersch on Feb 28, 2014 0:04:58 GMT -5
Love to know more of what you think about this box moving forward. Just check on the internet how much noise the fan makes when under heavy load! There are also solutions on the market with the new Intel NUC form factor and where the housing is passive cooled. I would recommend to build a HTPC based on the newest intel Bay trail, an i3 is more than enough, and a small SSD. The solution should be fully passive cooled (no fans). Use a NAS, located somewhere else in the house, for storage of all audio and video files. |
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Post by yves on Mar 1, 2014 4:45:16 GMT -5
Just check on the internet how much noise the fan makes when under heavy load! I did. The Asus VivoPC VC60 makes little to no sound most of the time. Even when stress-testing the unit, the internal fans made only a slight whirring sound. The Intel i3 3110M @ 2.40 GHz in the Asus VivoPC outperforms, and has a higher TDP than, the Intel i3 4010U @ 1.70 GHz in the Gigabyte Brix. Despite that, the Asus is still silent during playback of 1080p movies. [ The newer 5400 rpm harddrives are also silent, so there's no real need for an SSD ]. |
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Post by solidstate on Mar 1, 2014 13:52:42 GMT -5
Love to know more of what you think about this box moving forward. Just check on the internet how much noise the fan makes when under heavy load! There are also solutions on the market with the new Intel NUC form factor and where the housing is passive cooled. I would recommend to build a HTPC based on the newest intel Bay trail, an i3 is more than enough, and a small SSD. The solution should be fully passive cooled (no fans). Use a NAS, located somewhere else in the house, for storage of all audio and video files. Baytrail is not an i3. Baytrail is the name of the latest Atom processor. |
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Post by solidstate on Mar 1, 2014 13:57:50 GMT -5
Just check on the internet how much noise the fan makes when under heavy load! I did. The Asus VivoPC VC60 makes little to no sound most of the time. Even when stress-testing the unit, the internal fans made only a slight whirring sound. The Intel i3 3110M @ 2.40 GHz in the Asus VivoPC outperforms, and has a higher TDP than, the Intel i3 4010U @ 1.70 GHz in the Gigabyte Brix. Despite that, the Asus is still silent during playback of 1080p movies. [ The newer 5400 rpm harddrives are also silent, so there's no real need for an SSD ]. That's an Ivy Bridge part with HD4000 graphics. The 4010U is a Haswell part though it's low voltage and can only take 1.35v ram BUT it has HD4400 graphics that are significantly faster than HD4000 found in the 3110M. Regarding HD over SD, after using SDs for some time I could never go back to a HD for the OS. That Brix unit I just assembled cold boots Windows 8 in just under FIVE SECONDS!!! |
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hansk
Seeker Of Truth
Posts: 2
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Post by hansk on Mar 1, 2014 17:56:27 GMT -5
Hi, German computer magazine CT proposed a build last year based on Haswell with Intel motherboard which consumes less than 10 watts when idle. I followed that and used the prescribed Intel DH87RL with an i7-4771 which seems overkill but I use this rig also as home pc. The secret is the absence of moving parts, as I installed a big SSD and a monstrous passive cooler. The temperature of this set stays under 40 celsius. So it works well and this HTPC sits between my NAS and Emotiva UMC-200, connected via HDMI. Not using XBMC or MediaCenter just a free Microsoft RD app on my iPad to control what gets streamed into the UMC-200. Picture on www.panoramio.com/photo/101256560A better looking solution is the IPC2 from www.fit-pc.com/web/about/news/ipc2-press-release/ but more expensive. Plus I only discovered that neat device after purchasing the parts for my diy solution.  ----------------------------------------------- Intel DH87RL + i7-4771 + 1TB SSD + 16GB RAM + Windows 8.1 Pro with Classic Shell Synology DS414 Emotiva UMC-200 Rotel RB-1572 B&W 685 SVS PB-10 Philips 5507 |
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Post by yves on Mar 2, 2014 7:00:24 GMT -5
BUT it has HD4400 graphics that are significantly faster than HD4000 found in the 3110M Nope. The performance of the HD4400 in the i3 4010U is held back by the significantly lower clock speed so the HD4000 in the i3 3110M is still very slightly better overall, and in terms of overall CPU performance the i3 3110M is the clear winner. |
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Post by solidstate on Mar 7, 2014 23:17:19 GMT -5
BUT it has HD4400 graphics that are significantly faster than HD4000 found in the 3110M Nope. The performance of the HD4400 in the i3 4010U is held back by the significantly lower clock speed so the HD4000 in the i3 3110M is still very slightly better overall, and in terms of overall CPU performance the i3 3110M is the clear winner. The GPU is the 3110M and 4010U have the SAME CLOCK SPEEDS (max 1000 Mhz) but the 3110M has 16 execution units whilst the 4010U has 20 GT2 execution units. The GPU THEORETICALLY is a good 25-40% faster. Real world would be around 15-25% faster. Both would make good HTPC cpus. The HD4400 though has an improved video decoder engine that can do 4K. I don't believe HD4000 can do 4K and is a DX11.0 part. The HD4400 is a true DX11.1 part for Win8 support. Why not just use google? encrypted.google.com/#newwindow=1&q=hd+4400+vs+hd+4000I do agree though that the NON LOW VOLTAGE cpu is significantly faster.. Do you honestly think that extra CPU speed will be used with a HTPC under any scenario? Do you not think the GPU is more important considering it will be doing the real heavy lifting IE decoding video? |
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Post by rogersch on Mar 8, 2014 0:09:18 GMT -5
For regular HTPC use, like listing music or watching (HD) video, it really doesn't matter, of course with the right HTPC software, if you use an i3 4010U or i3 3110M. It is like having two cars, one with a topspeed of 250 km per hour and one of 265 km per hour. The topspeed of the cars won't make a difference when driving through the center of Paris during rush hour. By the way: If you are building a dedicated HTPC please check out the website OPENELEC. This is a tailor-made Linux solution with XBMC. The latest Beta release even got better. It runs perfectly on my HTPC, see for specs my signature, and this hardware is way less powerful than the i3 4010U or i3 3110M..... |
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Post by yves on Mar 8, 2014 16:32:37 GMT -5
Nope. The performance of the HD4400 in the i3 4010U is held back by the significantly lower clock speed so the HD4000 in the i3 3110M is still very slightly better overall, and in terms of overall CPU performance the i3 3110M is the clear winner. The GPU is the 3110M and 4010U have the SAME CLOCK SPEEDS (max 1000 Mhz) but the 3110M has 16 execution units whilst the 4010U has 20 GT2 execution units. The GPU THEORETICALLY is a good 25-40% faster. Real world would be around 15-25% faster. Both would make good HTPC cpus. The HD4400 though has an improved video decoder engine that can do 4K. I don't believe HD4000 can do 4K and is a DX11.0 part. The HD4400 is a true DX11.1 part for Win8 support. Why not just use google? encrypted.google.com/#newwindow=1&q=hd+4400+vs+hd+4000I do agree though that the NON LOW VOLTAGE cpu is significantly faster.. Do you honestly think that extra CPU speed will be used with a HTPC under any scenario? Do you not think the GPU is more important considering it will be doing the real heavy lifting IE decoding video? The 2.40 GHz vs. only 1.70 GHz clock speed is what I was obviously referring to. The real world overall graphics performance depends on it a lot more than you think. Not everyone needs 4k support. The HT projector that I have been planning to get does not support 4k anyway. What makes you think I don't use google? And yes, I honestly think that extra CPU speed will be used with a HTPC under a few scenarios. Here is an example. |
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Post by daveh1 on Mar 8, 2014 17:43:34 GMT -5
Hi fellas. Great thread. Just wondering if any of the above solutions are happily able to bitstream DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD from BR ISO. Had been looking at the Cubox i4Pro but I don't think high res audio is commonly supported for a great number of solutions running (see Audioengine listing for XBMC). Cheers, Dave |
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Post by rogersch on Mar 9, 2014 1:36:51 GMT -5
Hi fellas. Great thread. Just wondering if any of the above solutions are happily able to bitstream DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD from BR ISO. No problem with my setup. For HTPC technical specs see my signature. The HTPC is connected via 1 GBit LAN to a NAS (Synology 413j) and all media is streamed from this NAS without any hick-ups. Also BluRay - ISO files. I've installed the latest OpenElec version (4 beta 1) and it runs perfectly. |
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Post by yves on Mar 9, 2014 14:28:13 GMT -5
Hi fellas. Great thread. Just wondering if any of the above solutions are happily able to bitstream DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD from BR ISO. No problem with my setup. For HTPC technical specs see my signature. The HTPC is connected via 1 GBit LAN to a NAS (Synology 413j) and all media is streamed from this NAS without any hick-ups. Also BluRay - ISO files. I've installed the latest OpenElec version (4 beta 1) and it runs perfectly. He is referring to "audio bitstream" HDMI, not DLNA (or similar) "streaming". They stopped making HDMI output computer hardware devices that can't do audio bitstreaming a few years back. MPC-HC has LAV Filters built-in these days. (In MPC-HC, go to View | Options | Internal Filters | Audio decoder button to open the LAV Audio Decoder settings panel). ArcSoft Total Media Theatre 6 and Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 13 can also do audio bitstreaming over HDMI. You might need to mount your ISO file using Elaborate Bytes Virtual CloneDrive. The download link for Virtual CloneDrive is at the bottom of the Download section on this page. The user manual of Virtual CloneDrive can be found here. |
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