What's a Good Spec for HTPC?

[KiwiKid]

Hey all,

I'm wondering what a good spec would be for a HTPC so there is no overkill or underkill - obviously to keep the cost to a minimum.

I'm currently thinking of an AMD CPU. What speed should I get? What does that 2800, 3000 number mean? Does the socket type make any difference?

How many PCI slots do I need? Is PCIe necessary? What about SATA?

I want to run a stand-alone HTPC. The main uses are HD-based DVD watching, TV recording, Music and Pics (The main 4)

And just so you know, I've never had a HTPC before, a while I know a little about puters I'm certainly no geek so please be patient. Also, I have been looking at GBPVR for a while, although I don't have a TV card to play with that side of things. There is still a lot I don't know about how things work

Thanks in advance - KiwiKid

[reven]

i say get at least 4 PCI slots (thats how many are in use in my machine, and ive only got 1 spare). For the cpu, it doesnt really need all that much ( i prefer Intel, but thats just mean, more i read somewhere that more mhz is better for video and since intel have more mhz they're usually faster, amd are better at games, but hey that could be a load of crap, but it sold me), anyway anything around 2ghz + will be fine (1ghz is recommended but thats still slow). PCI-E is a nice thing to have since the PCI-E gfx cards are faster and cheaper, but not all that important at the moment (by the time you are needing this slot, ie you're buggered without it, youll probably have upgraded anyways). SATA is well, just get SATA its newer, its faster, and its like $20 more expensive than IDE, every new mb supports it so, yeah just stick with SATA.

if you want to do some shopping check out http://www.pricespy.co.nz its a pc store search engine for nz pc stores, quickest way to find cheap parts.

oh and get 1GB of ram, ram will greatly improve the performance of your htpc.

[KiwiKid]

Hi Reven,

Thanks for the reply. As you can probably tell I'm pretty fresh to all this stuff, though have been researching it for ages - and I discovered there is just too much to know - so it's time to just jump in!

I'm don't really care what CPU type as long as it's fast enough so things don't stutter with several programs/functions going at the same time. Would a dual core chip help?

[reven]

well im running on a Celeron D330, at 2.67Ghz and i can run everything fine. this cpu only costs about $120 now in nz, the biggest difference i have noticed is with RAM, a cheaper cpu and more ram is a better option to go for than a expensive cpu and less ram (well in the world of gbpvr, the cpu isnt used that much, but a lot of ram is).

[KiwiKid]

Reven - I figured RAM would be a major factor (at least a 1Gb I suppose). I'm starting to get a feel with the spec now I've made some posts - so thanks

[mattman]

Most important is an apropriate TV-Card with Hardware MPEG2 encoding... without that you won't be able to do anything with ur PC while recording - no matter what CPU u use.

If u want to cut things on your HTPC as well go forward up from 2 GHz, if you have another PC running that matches those specs and u can cut on this one u won't need an expensive CPU (u'd be able to run a htpc on a 700mhz machine as well ;-))

[renzema]

Take note that much of what you read here is from people tweaking their systems to get the utmost performace out of them. However, with a hardware encoding TV tuner, you system will be largely idle...

Just a quick example...

System: 2x160 7200 rpm drives used for primary storage

D1: 60GB for C:
D2: 60 GB backup for C

D1+D2: 200 GB stripe for main recording storage (IDE connected)

Secondary storage is 2x250 gb external 100 mb ethernet ximeta disk enclosures running at 5400 rpm (limitation here is the network, not the disk). Despite this "slow" disk, I never notice any delay except when the drives have to spin up.

Actual system is an Athlon 2400 with 768mb of memory. In addition to GBPVR, it is running a mysql server and a web server. With the exception of when comskip is running, the processor is 98% idle. Video card is a Nvidia 5200 with 256mb of memory.

Yes, it is not the fastest system on the block, but it is very stable. If it is really going to be an HTPC and sitting in your living room, get slower drives. They run a lot cooler and quieter. Don't overclock, but underclock your CPU. It will run almost as fast, and run a lot cooler too.

With this system, pretty much everything is instantaneous. Yes, if I with with the latest and greatest system, things would be faster, but at what cost? and at what noise level?

[KiwiKid]

Hey all,

Thanks for the great replies - definitely gives me a lot of food for thought. I think I'll try and stay away from as much tweaking as possible. Although I find it a lot of fun and instructional, I want a system to replace the majority of my CE components - so I want it real stable and realiable without having to have to tweak it every time I use it. There is also the wife factor to consider

The "Over 2.0Ghz" punt is what I was thinking, but I certainly didn't think I would need the latest "3.???Ghz" chip

What does the "2800, 3000 etc" mean in reference to AMD chips. AMD's chips don't seem to have that higher clock speed - but I've read some reports that they have out-done some of Intel's high clock speed chips.

I've read about the hardware decoding onboard the tuner is the story, but what about dual tuner cards? (Any cons in comparison to singles? Are they as capable?)

The TV buffer isn't something I'd considered, so thanks for that insight. I seem to be getting a much better understanding of what is needed - so much appreciated.

[reven]

I've read about the hardware decoding onboard the tuner is the story, but what about dual tuner cards? (Any cons in comparison to singles? Are they as capable?)

if you want a capture card, your best bet is to get a PVR150 (non MCE) it comes with a remote, but if you want dual tuners, you can get the PVR500, which is basically 2x150 on one card, but im not sure if it comes with a remote.....
but there is no quality loss between the 150 and 500, since they use the same hardware encoding chips. the downside is, its one card, if it dies your buggered, if you get 2x150 and one dies, you still have one that works and thats about it.....

[daphatty]

However, with a hardware encoding TV tuner, you system will be largely idle...

I'd have to say this is largely true with one major exception, HD-DVD viewing (one of the OPs intended uses).

I just got my hands on a WMVHD movie and I must say it has exposed a weakness in my HTPC, the video card. The specs of my PC meet Microsoft's "minimum" with the exception of the video card. I am currently running a Radeon 7000 which is an AGP 4x card with 64MB on on-board RAM. Aside from a slight tearing problem during fast action scenes this card has functioned beautifully for me until now. No matter how much tweaking I do I simply cannot get this card to play back the WMVHD movie smoothly, even if I copy and play the movie from the hard drive!

I'd suggest a beefy video card if you plan to playback this type of high bandwidth video. I'd say no less than a Radeon 9600 (or whatever the nVidia equivalent would be) with a bare minimum of 128MB of video RAM.