- Sep 24, 2009
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- 18,510
So I'm about to build a HTPC for my dad. Our old one with a socket 428: pentium 4 2.8 has long lived its life. I am curious to go the AMD or Intel route. Things I will look for or want:
1) It has to be able to play 1080p smoothly. My old pentium 4 could handle 720p but lagged seriously when it came to 1080p. I download a lot of mkvs and I need a cpu that can handle all that processing power. I know a lot of people will say get a graphics card solution to help off load but there are a lot of mkvs that offloading is not supported. For example, I downloaded the Transformers BluRay rip (16 gigs) but my Radeon 3200 can't offload. Maybe things have changed since then. Your advice?
2) Dual Core or Quad Core? I'm leaning towards a quad core to be future proof. Plus I never know if my dad might want to encode something.
3) Output in digital sound: So I know there are very few soundcards (I think only 2 can) that can output the two hd sound formats uncompressed to a receiver. Instead people are decoding it on their computer and sending it as uncompressed 6 channel LPCM to the receiver? Please correct me if I am wrong. I have very limited knowledge in this area. What I did on my old HTPC was use ac3filter and directly output dolby digital and dts through spdif to the receiver. Anyways, I know HMDI 1.3 can carry uncompressed sound therefore what hardware is necessary for me to accomplish HD sound to the receiver? May it be a soundcard, onboard sound, or even video card. I heard the new ATI 5870 has onboard decoding for sound or something like that. Sorry for my ranting
4) A modular power supply that is efficient but also quiet. I need it to be reliable and also power everything.
5) A dedicated video card or onboard solution: For starters, I WON'T PLAY CRYSIS!!!! lol now that is out of the way... I know that Media Player Classic has a bunch of functions that can enhance the image quality. I want to use these function but I don't think the onboard solution is powerful enough to render 1080p. Anyways what graphics card would you mention? Something that doesn't produce a lot of heat would be good!
6) RAM RAM RAM: 4 gigs should be sufficient, any brands you guys favor?
7) Hard Drives: My dad is a download addict. Ever since we got time warner turbo speed, he's been going through hard drives like no other. Downloading at 2 mb/s makes you spoiled! Plus a megaupload and rapidshare account doesn't help that either. lol. I plan on buying 2 1 terrabyte hard drives but will probably need more. Maybe in the future i'll even put a SSD in there. I don't need it to be fast, just quiet and able to run movies without bottle-necking (I doubt that will be a problem).
8) Lastly, the MOST IMPORTANT thing is the case. Well to my father that is. He doesn't care what is inside the HTPC as long as it runs perfectly and fits in his home theater rack. So yes...it has to be appealing and BLACK like all his other gear is. What would you guys recommend?
Some random things...
I will be running Windows 7. I'll get it for $30 cause i'm a student
I'm thinking about buying the bluetooth keyboard from logitech. What remote would I need or do I need a remote???
Also, would you guys recommend a different heatsink for whatever the cpu would be?
Almost forgot, cheaper is better but I don't want to sacrifice quality. If you could build an ideal HTPC would would you get? If you had a $800 limit, how would that change things.
Thank you for your help!!!!!
1) It has to be able to play 1080p smoothly. My old pentium 4 could handle 720p but lagged seriously when it came to 1080p. I download a lot of mkvs and I need a cpu that can handle all that processing power. I know a lot of people will say get a graphics card solution to help off load but there are a lot of mkvs that offloading is not supported. For example, I downloaded the Transformers BluRay rip (16 gigs) but my Radeon 3200 can't offload. Maybe things have changed since then. Your advice?
2) Dual Core or Quad Core? I'm leaning towards a quad core to be future proof. Plus I never know if my dad might want to encode something.
3) Output in digital sound: So I know there are very few soundcards (I think only 2 can) that can output the two hd sound formats uncompressed to a receiver. Instead people are decoding it on their computer and sending it as uncompressed 6 channel LPCM to the receiver? Please correct me if I am wrong. I have very limited knowledge in this area. What I did on my old HTPC was use ac3filter and directly output dolby digital and dts through spdif to the receiver. Anyways, I know HMDI 1.3 can carry uncompressed sound therefore what hardware is necessary for me to accomplish HD sound to the receiver? May it be a soundcard, onboard sound, or even video card. I heard the new ATI 5870 has onboard decoding for sound or something like that. Sorry for my ranting
4) A modular power supply that is efficient but also quiet. I need it to be reliable and also power everything.
5) A dedicated video card or onboard solution: For starters, I WON'T PLAY CRYSIS!!!! lol now that is out of the way... I know that Media Player Classic has a bunch of functions that can enhance the image quality. I want to use these function but I don't think the onboard solution is powerful enough to render 1080p. Anyways what graphics card would you mention? Something that doesn't produce a lot of heat would be good!
6) RAM RAM RAM: 4 gigs should be sufficient, any brands you guys favor?
7) Hard Drives: My dad is a download addict. Ever since we got time warner turbo speed, he's been going through hard drives like no other. Downloading at 2 mb/s makes you spoiled! Plus a megaupload and rapidshare account doesn't help that either. lol. I plan on buying 2 1 terrabyte hard drives but will probably need more. Maybe in the future i'll even put a SSD in there. I don't need it to be fast, just quiet and able to run movies without bottle-necking (I doubt that will be a problem).
8) Lastly, the MOST IMPORTANT thing is the case. Well to my father that is. He doesn't care what is inside the HTPC as long as it runs perfectly and fits in his home theater rack. So yes...it has to be appealing and BLACK like all his other gear is. What would you guys recommend?
Some random things...
I will be running Windows 7. I'll get it for $30 cause i'm a student
I'm thinking about buying the bluetooth keyboard from logitech. What remote would I need or do I need a remote???
Also, would you guys recommend a different heatsink for whatever the cpu would be?
Almost forgot, cheaper is better but I don't want to sacrifice quality. If you could build an ideal HTPC would would you get? If you had a $800 limit, how would that change things.
Thank you for your help!!!!!
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