The quick and dirty Home Theater PC fred

[mjmacky]

I was an AMD fanboi for years, but there are specific reasons why I will not use an AMD cpu in a home theater installation, and the new Ivybridge processors from Intel are even more of a nail in that particluar coffin.
The first is thermal profile, all of the AMD processors run very hot,even the the new FM1 @ 100W in a hometheater is a big thermal consideration, this is one area that AMD really needs to work on in its manufacturing process, is dissipating the heat more efficiently, they have always made pot boilers, Intel did too for a long time but only the high-end processors and have got that under raps with the lower end, AMD still haven't.

Secondly bang for your buck, the Ivybridge processors outperform the A6 & A8 Quad cores by a very wide margin. I tend try and futureproof myself by buying something that I can forget about for a few couple of years at least if not three, so there are several boxes that get ticked by going to the ivybridge technology. the 22nm fab process uses even less power a big plus for htpc use, it can use 1600mhz DDR3 RAM which weirdly is cheaper than 1333mhz atm? And they aren't exactly slow into the bargain even that bottom of the food chain 3450 @ 3.1Ghz.

I understand the heat concern, but that's a solution easily found with a good thermal paste and heatsink. My HTPC case (also Silverstone) has a lot less clearance than yours, but I've got a Scythe Shuriken keeping a 65 W AMD Athlon II X2 250 cool, and I've rarely seen it above 30 C (though I don't even bother to check it that often at this point). With my Desktop, I've got a 125 W AMD quad core that will run 100 % for hours, the heatsink cooling solution there keeps @ 40 C during load. So basically the point I'm making is that heat is an issue easily addressed, but obviously I can't do anything about energy consumption other than spend more money on processors and boards.

Now, for futureproofing. I don't know how that applies to HTPCs since they don't demand much. My friend is running his with a dual core 2.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ (yes, I know the spec since it was from my old build), a 4 year old processor and it gives him no hickups, not even with Flash (from Hulu Desktop client in Win7) or Silverlight (Netflix app in WMC).

You're talking about bang for the buck, but when it comes down to it, HTPCs are really about price. Given that, I built mine for $360 including drives. I could have easily built it for less but I don't mind spending just a little extra to add a little spec, even if it will probably never go used. Even though I linked a few products, I would never actually use them to build an HTPC, I just can't justify the costs for its intended use.

[Artemis]

I was an AMD fanboi for years, but there are specific reasons why I will not use an AMD cpu in a home theater installation, and the new Ivybridge processors from Intel are even more of a nail in that particluar coffin.
The first is thermal profile, all of the AMD processors run very hot,even the the new FM1 @ 100W in a hometheater is a big thermal consideration, this is one area that AMD really needs to work on in its manufacturing process, is dissipating the heat more efficiently, they have always made pot boilers, Intel did too for a long time but only the high-end processors and have got that under raps with the lower end, AMD still haven't.

Secondly bang for your buck, the Ivybridge processors outperform the A6 & A8 Quad cores by a very wide margin. I tend try and futureproof myself by buying something that I can forget about for a few couple of years at least if not three, so there are several boxes that get ticked by going to the ivybridge technology. the 22nm fab process uses even less power a big plus for htpc use, it can use 1600mhz DDR3 RAM which weirdly is cheaper than 1333mhz atm? And they aren't exactly slow into the bargain even that bottom of the food chain 3450 @ 3.1Ghz.

I understand the heat concern, but that's a solution easily found with a good thermal paste and heatsink. My HTPC case (also Silverstone) has a lot less clearance than yours, but I've got a Scythe Shuriken keeping a 65 W AMD Athlon II X2 250 cool, and I've rarely seen it above 30 C (though I don't even bother to check it that often at this point). With my Desktop, I've got a 125 W AMD quad core that will run 100 % for hours, the heatsink cooling solution there keeps @ 40 C during load. So basically the point I'm making is that heat is an issue easily addressed, but obviously I can't do anything about energy consumption other than spend more money on processors and boards.

Now, for futureproofing. I don't know how that applies to HTPCs since they don't demand much. My friend is running his with a dual core 2.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ (yes, I know the spec since it was from my old build), a 4 year old processor and it gives him no hickups, not even with Flash (from Hulu Desktop client in Win7) or Silverlight (Netflix app in WMC).

You're talking about bang for the buck, but when it comes down to it, HTPCs are really about price. Given that, I built mine for $360 including drives. I could have easily built it for less but I don't mind spending just a little extra to add a little spec, even if it will probably never go used. Even though I linked a few products, I would never actually use them to build an HTPC, I just can't justify the costs for its intended use.

Actually your consideration of cost I will take under advisement considering the use. This system has basically three uses: some unpacking/merging/repairing of files, playback of media and blu ray, plus some streaming formats, and it also serves the files to remote machines on the network. I do the shares through SaMBa rather than uPNP since there is a mix of Linux and Windows and PNP isn't always that Plug & Play anyway.
That being said I am greatly impressed by the operation of the liquid cooler in the PC build, the machine is virtually silent and I am right next to it, so I intend to get the baby brother the Antec Kuhler H2o 620 liquid cooler as part of the upgrade, since I was a cheap bastard last time and that cooler isn't silent at all. Unfortunately though the FM1 socket isn't supported by the Antec liquid coolers so I will keep searching although basing the upgrade on an FX4100 maybe an option?

[mjmacky]

My apartment is like a wind tunnel, echoing with the sounds of fans; whether it's the AC blowing, the air purifier next to me, or when all else is lost a total of 6 case fans, 2 power supply fans and 2 heatsink fans blowing in consonance.

[bijoy]

Since I am so impressed by the quiet operation from the Antec H2o cooler in the new PC, it is virtually silent one of the upgrades to the HTPC will be the little brother of the Antec 920, the Antec Kuhler H2o 620. The difference with this Liquid cooler is there is only one cooling fan controlled by PWM and there is no USB header but in a HTPC installation this will be ideal.

I am planning to buy this motherboard, which doesn't exist according to newegg, so you will have to put up with the local link: http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=...Ivy-Bridge-Int . That plus the new i5 3450 Ivybridge CPU @ 3.1 Ghz and 8GB of 1600Mhhz DDR3 RAM.

This upgrade will give me space for 5 hard drives plus the Blu Ray BD-Rom drive, more than enough for my present purposes (hopefully) and should see the system running smoothely for quite awhile yet.

I kind of like that board, not really crazy about the cost of the processors it supports though. Look at you trying to find us Newegg links, how very sweet.

I am finding that all the mATX UEFI boards for AMD are using the FM1 sockets (accelerated processors w/ discrete GPU). This combo seems to save about a $100
ASUS F1A75-M PRO FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS (can't find on PBtech)
AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 6550D (can't find on PBtech)

Why 3850, no 3870K?

[mjmacky]

I kind of like that board, not really crazy about the cost of the processors it supports though. Look at you trying to find us Newegg links, how very sweet.

I am finding that all the mATX UEFI boards for AMD are using the FM1 sockets (accelerated processors w/ discrete GPU). This combo seems to save about a $100
ASUS F1A75-M PRO FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS (can't find on PBtech)
AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 6550D (can't find on PBtech)

Why 3850, no 3870K?

Probably because I just picked out the cheapest performer for that board. I don't think the price difference was $10 last time I checked.

Isn't it about time you tell everyone the HTPC in post #6 is your own?