LosOjos Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 (edited) As we're now all PC gamers in my house, I decided that I finally had a damn good excuse to build a gaming capable HTPC. I don't have the budget to build an all out beast but I think I've specced up a decent rig with a good upgrade path for my £600 budget. Already have a Win7 licence for it, a PCI-e wireless adapter (won't need this right now as it'll be wired, but may need it when we move house) and wireless KB/M and we all have our own wired Xbox pads to use with it. The plan is to run XBMC in Win7 with a link to Steam Big Picture - there is no intention for this machine to be used for anything else as we already have my main rig for general use and my daughter also has her own PC in her room now - this one's purely for entertainment. Please take a look at my spec below and let me know what you think. The one thing I've been obsessing over is the CPU - I've gone the Intel route despite the fact that AMD offer theoretically faster CPUs at this lower price point, but I think an i3 will stand up for the next 12 months at which point I should be able to upgrade to an i5 if necessary and this is why I decided on Intel - there seems to be a better upgrade path. As the other two machines in the house are also 1150 based, it means that when I upgrade any of them, I can roll out a small upgrade to the other machines too. The spec: Case - Silverstone Grandia GD05 Desktop HTPC Case PSU - Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Mobo - Gigabyte H87M-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX CPU - Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 RAM - Avexir MPower Yellow Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 HDD (may add in a boot SSD later, for now I feel a SSHD offers a decent balance between cost/performance/storage) - Seagate SSHD 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache ODD - OcUK Value 4x BD-ROM GPU - Gigabyte Radeon R9 270X WindForce 3X OC 2048MB Any suggestions on where I could improve this rig without tipping the £600 mark? This currently comes in at £595.92 - can't get much closer than that! Edited January 13, 2014 by LosOjos
Gatt Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 Just built a new box myself using Aria for just under £500* [TABLE=width: 524] [TR] [TD]MSI Z87-G41 PC Mate Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) ATX Motherboard[/TD] [TD]£61.25[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Intel Core i5-4430 3.00GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail[/TD] [TD]£109.99[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]2TB Toshiba DT01ACA200 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive - HDD[/TD] [TD]£45.83[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]4GB Mushkin Enhanced Silverline #991770 (1x4GB) 1333 (PC3-10666) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM CAS 9-9-9-24 1.5V[/TD] [TD]£24.99[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]ARIAnet Synergy Black Midi Tower Case w/ 500W Power Supply[/TD] [TD]£17.99[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Palit GeForce GTX 660 2GB Nvidia Graphics Card[/TD] [TD]£109.09[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme 7.1 PCI-E Soundcard - OEM[/TD] [TD=align: right]£29.03[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] Forgot to get a PCIe Power cable (£5ish from Maplins) and a DVD-RW (about £15 from Aria) *Prices exclude VAT & Deivery 1
3s-gtech Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 Your posted spec looks just about perfect for your needs, it's a good balance of power and value. At 1080P your R9 270X should do okay, perhaps a few settings will need knocking down on AAA games but it's highly capable. Your CPU is fine - you could go with AMD (perhaps an A10 6700) and skip buying the GPU altogether. Gaming/system performance would be markedly lower, but you'd save £150 or so. 1
LosOjos Posted January 13, 2014 Author Posted January 13, 2014 Your posted spec looks just about perfect for your needs, it's a good balance of power and value. At 1080P your R9 270X should do okay, perhaps a few settings will need knocking down on AAA games but it's highly capable. Your CPU is fine - you could go with AMD (perhaps an A10 6700) and skip buying the GPU altogether. Gaming/system performance would be markedly lower, but you'd save £150 or so. Yeah I did think about that but decided to put the money in to a decent GPU (the R9 270 is better than the GTX560 in my main PC and that handles everything I play well enough for me at 1080p - not ultra in all games but more than adequate for me). The main thing that was pulling me towards an APU was the option of building the whole thing in a tiny ITX case, but the case above will fit nicely under my AV amp and actually looks quite similar too, which pleases the missus. Just out of curiosity - is the general consensus that AMD APUs are better than Intel ones?
zag Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 Gaming PC != HTPC I use an Haswell NUC for my new HTPC running xbmc. Its got no fans and is the size of a pack of cards
3s-gtech Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 AMD APUs are better as a complete package IMO (at the same price point I may add, a low end AMD APU is inferior to a high end Intel 'APU') for CPU/GPU/computation together, but in many performance scenarios Intel wins outstandingly. Where AMD makes sense is for low cost systems with decent all-round capability. No point in even bringing the FX line into it, they just get trounced. 1
LosOjos Posted January 13, 2014 Author Posted January 13, 2014 Gaming PC != HTPC I use an Haswell NUC for my new HTPC running xbmc. Its got no fans and is the size of a pack of cards I know that traditionally an HTPC is a small form factor machine decidated to media, but this will be something of a hybrid. It's likely to see equal use between movies/streaming and Steam. I suppose a better name for it then would be an HEPC (Home Entertainment PC)
LosOjos Posted January 13, 2014 Author Posted January 13, 2014 AMD APUs are better as a complete package IMO (at the same price point I may add, a low end AMD APU is inferior to a high end Intel 'APU') for CPU/GPU/computation together, but in many performance scenarios Intel wins outstandingly. Where AMD makes sense is for low cost systems with decent all-round capability. No point in even bringing the FX line into it, they just get trounced. That's what I suspected. I used to insist on AMD back in the day, then after a few years break where I didn't build a single PC, came back to find that Intel owned the market. I wonder where things went wrong for AMD? The old Athlon range used to whoop Pentium for gaming (though Pentium did have the upper hand for multi tasking even back then). Now it seems that AMD are lagging behind in all aspects but their APU, and that's probably thanks to buying out ATI a few years back...
sonofsanta Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 (edited) Things went wrong for Intel AMD once the Core 2 line came out, and it's only gotten worse for them since then - they've more or less stood still on performance as Intel have made them irrelevant on that metric. I reckon it's about spot on as spec goes. At this end of the CPU scale, and for gaming, AMD or Intel doesn't really matter, and the spec you're at is more than enough for gaming TBH. I would say that AMD is generally better for the upgrade path - Intel release a new platform for each generation whereas AMD tend to have more in the way of new CPUs slotting into old mobos, but that i3 (or an A8+ AMD chip) will be plenty fine for gaming, GPU will make far more of a difference to how games run. The Intel chip is less power though, so should run cooler and hence quieter - which is relevant given where this box will live. In short: i3 fine, don't worry about the i5 upgrade later IMHO. Good PSU, good case, always nice when someone doesn't need telling to invest in that area Also, on the GPU front, Overclockers have another R9 270X for £15 cheaper this week: HIS Radeon R9 270X IceQ BOOST 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card [H270XQ2G2M] Edited January 13, 2014 by sonofsanta 1
LosOjos Posted January 13, 2014 Author Posted January 13, 2014 @Gatt - how did you find Aria PC? Never heard of them before but I might give them a try later. I've put my machine together on OC, Scan and eBuyer so far looking for the best fit. Overclockers wins at the moment as they have the Guardia case I want and the saving I make on that over alternative cases elsewhere allowed me to go from a 270 to a 270X. I'm limited as to where to buy from as it'll be a finance purchase.
LosOjos Posted January 13, 2014 Author Posted January 13, 2014 (edited) In short: i3 fine, don't worry about the i5 upgrade later IMHO. Yeah I am hoping the i3 will be just fine, there won't be a lot of multi tasking going on and AFAIK, there are very few games that take advantage of more than 2 cores. Good PSU, good case, always nice when someone doesn't need telling to invest in that area I learned the hard way not to skimp on these! Really chuffed with the case here actually, it'll fit perfectly with my AV amp (to be fair, that's what it was designed to do). I really rate these Corsair CX series PSUs too, you can tell some corners have been cut to get the price down compared to their CS range but they're fantastic for the price, haven't had a problem with one yet. Also, on the GPU front, Overclockers have another R9 270X for £15 cheaper this week: HIS Radeon R9 270X IceQ BOOST 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card [H270XQ2G2M] I did notice that but haven't heard of HIS so dodged them TBH - are they OK? Another mistake I've made in the past is buying the cheapest version of the GPU with no regards to manufacturer - had a fair few PowerColor units turn up DOA! (That was a few years back, they may have improved now) Edited January 13, 2014 by LosOjos Grammar fail.
3s-gtech Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 It has been pretty interesting, when you factor in cost and forget the ultra high-end stuff (£400+ on a CPU is pretty niche really). As an overall summary of the last seven/eight years, you can say that Intel have held the CPU performance crown. If you boil it down a bit, AMD have had some compelling products - their APUs (starting with Trinity) have mixed a decent enough CPU (especially the Trinity line, using Stars instead of Bulldozer CPUs) with a capable GPU, at a strong price point. The platforms are usually good value too, with cheap motherboards. The Phenom II line traded blows with Core 2, and bested it, when Core 2 was still kept on as the mainstream after Nehalem (Core i first gen). AMD were producing fast quad and hexa-cored CPUs for the same price. Clock for clock they were down, but in threaded work they were superior. So much so, that I still run a Phenom II X4 in my work machine, and see no need to replace it. What really knocked AMD about was Bulldozer, and its poor reception and relative performance (plus it was mega-hyped). The architecture has been massively improved since, and hopefully Kaveri (mixing Steamroller with GCN) will start to make this shine. Sadly though, AMDs performance line CPUs just don't have the same appeal - I can't think of a single scenario where I'd spec an FX AM3+ system over a Haswell one. 1
sonofsanta Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 I did notice that but haven't heard of HIS so dodged them TBH - are they OK? Another mistake I've made in the past is buying the cheapest version of the GPU with no regards to manufacturer - had a fair few PowerColor units turn up DOA! (That was a few years back, they may have improved now) I've never owned a HIS but I've seen them mentioned for a long time, and there's plenty of reviews of this particular card (one, two, three, plenty of others about) so I wouldn't be overly concerned, personally - but then we all have our own foibles and preferences with regards to brands (personally I don't like XFX these days), and peace of mind may well be worth £15. 1
Gatt Posted January 13, 2014 Posted January 13, 2014 @Gatt - how did you find Aria PC? Never heard of them before but I might give them a try later. I've put my machine together on OC, Scan and eBuyer so far looking for the best fit. Overclockers wins at the moment as they have the Guardia case I want and the saving I make on that over alternative cases elsewhere allowed me to go from a 270 to a 270X. I'm limited as to where to buy from as it'll be a finance purchase. I've pretty much always used Aria and I find them great - I did have a look at Overclockers when speccing my new PC, but stuck with Aria as they seemed slightly lower in price. Depends on what you're looking for TBH.. 1
LosOjos Posted January 13, 2014 Author Posted January 13, 2014 (edited) I've pretty much always used Aria and I find them great - I did have a look at Overclockers when speccing my new PC, but stuck with Aria as they seemed slightly lower in price. Depends on what you're looking for TBH.. They do seem to be decent prices and I like their "Buy now pay later" scheme (would rather do that than pay finance), just a shame they don't seem to have a suitable case. This one would be perfect if it wasn't for the half-size expansion slots: https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Cases/HTPC/ARIAnet+HTPC-006+HTPC+Black+Aluminium+Desktop+Micro-ATX+Case+w%2F+Remote+?productId=53237 That said, the BitFenix Phenom is a possibility for another space in my setup, I'll have to measure it but I think this will just fit (seen a few others this size that would fit but the USB were on top, wouldn't have been able to use them): https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Cases/Micro+ATX/BitFenix+Phenom+MATX+Cube+Case+-+Midnight+Black+?productId=58069 EDIT: well after rebuilding specced around the BitFenix Phenom ITX, I realised there's no space for an ODD which is something of a deal breaker since I want it to play Bluray - then again I'm not sure how "integrated" I could make BluRay playback in XBMC... still have some thinking to do. Edited January 13, 2014 by LosOjos
LosOjos Posted January 13, 2014 Author Posted January 13, 2014 Really got me thinking now on the optical drive... I never buy games on discs and reading up, BluRay playback sounds like a dog in XBMC. I still have my PS3 acting as BluRay/DVD player so perhaps I ditch the ODD all together and instead put in something like this (though I can't actually find one for sale anywhere!): Antec.com - Product: VERIS Elite
LosOjos Posted January 13, 2014 Author Posted January 13, 2014 OK so now I'm thinking install this instead of the BluRay drive but could do with some advice: Soundgraph iMon VFD 5.25" Multimedia Controller - Black [iMON VFD-bk] First off, has anyone here used one of these? If so, how simple is it to setup to show what you want? My worry is that it will only really work with the bundled software. Not the end of the world if the screen is a fixed message (though obviously I'd like it to display some info) but it's the remote I'm worried about - if that will only work with the bundled software, this is a waste of £45 IMO. Also, can anyone confirm/deny that BluRay playback is still a PITA in XBMC, or is it relatively simple/seamless now? Bearing in mind this is going to be for the whole family to use like a media center, it needs to be as simple as inserting the disc and choosing Play/BluRay, if you have to faff around manually opening up and configuring other software every time just to play them then I won't bother.
LosOjos Posted January 14, 2014 Author Posted January 14, 2014 OK, I've decided (for now at least!) to keep an optical drive, but only DVD. I have a BluRay player already and from what I've read online, BluRay support is still touchy at best on a PC. To make myself feel better about ditching BluRay support, I've gone for a slimline slot loading DVD drive and got a 5.25" bezel that matches my case... this will make the missus very happy (and hopefully make her miss the fact I've gone £20 over budget because I decided to get some Crucial Ballistix memory instead of the Avexir listed above). Won't be purchasing until pay day, but I'm happy with my base now. Only reason it may change is if there's a significant price drop on any upgraded components that would bring them within my budget - just have to wait and see!
chazzy2501 Posted January 14, 2014 Posted January 14, 2014 if you want bluray support then everything needs to support HDCP the hardware, drivers and playback software (including OS) and I don't believe Linux does this.
ZeroHour Posted January 14, 2014 Posted January 14, 2014 Sorry I missed this, I use bluray on pc and it works semi-well. I gave up buying internal drives for my rig a few years ago and bought a bluray burner thats usb powered to work everywhere I need. Software wise powerdvd is okay, its the best I have found so far if you want to have full TrueHD output (HDMI Only fyi)
LosOjos Posted January 14, 2014 Author Posted January 14, 2014 if you want bluray support then everything needs to support HDCP the hardware, drivers and playback software (including OS) and I don't believe Linux does this. I'm going to be basing the machine on Windows 7 as it'll be doubling up as a Steam Box Sorry I missed this, I use bluray on pc and it works semi-well. I gave up buying internal drives for my rig a few years ago and bought a bluray burner thats usb powered to work everywhere I need. Software wise powerdvd is okay, its the best I have found so far if you want to have full TrueHD output (HDMI Only fyi) Yeah I have got a BluRay drive in my main PC but I never use it any more. Used to use PowerDVD but I can't imagine how you could integrate it with XBMC without physically having to close the window when you're done. I know that sounds trivial, but the idea is the whole thing will be as simple as possible to use so the whole family can jump on and use it. If I knew I could get BluRay to work seamlessly (i.e. the same as DVD playback in XBMC) then I'd do it, but I don't think it's possible...
3s-gtech Posted January 14, 2014 Posted January 14, 2014 their APUs (starting with Llano) have mixed a decent enough CPU (especially the Llano line, using Stars instead of Piledriver CPUs) Fixed as I can't edit.
LosOjos Posted January 15, 2014 Author Posted January 15, 2014 OK, missus threw a pipe in the works last night by announcing she'd rather have the machine inside a different cabinet, one which only has spaces 33cm square They are open backed so can get away with up to about 40cm deep. Anyway, we looked at the options and, much to my surprise, she loves the BitFenix Colossus mATX: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/pimg/CA-161-BX_82648_350.jpg I think it's a lovely case but I'm surprised she went for it as I thought it'd be too in your face for her with the light - she's more of a geek than she likes to let on! Now, it's exactly 33cm tall, but I plan to remove the feet and put on some small rubber pads instead (to give the door clearance) so it should fit fine. The only question I have left is whether or not it's possible to fit both a large GPU and an optical drive at the same time. I've watched various videos and looked at various photos, but none seem to show this setup. It looks like it should fit, but it's going to be infuriating if I get the mobo mounted only to find it won't fit everything. I've emailed BitFenix to ask the question but in the meantime thought I'd see if anyone here has this case and if so, is it possible?
LosOjos Posted January 15, 2014 Author Posted January 15, 2014 Gonna take a chance on the case, it looks like it should fit... Parts ordered, can't wait for the build
3s-gtech Posted January 16, 2014 Posted January 16, 2014 BitFenix Colossus Mini-ITX Review - Internals | bit-tech.net
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