What is Digg?31 Comments
- evolseven, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4mine just sits in a closet above my living room.. with a 15 foot usb cable going to a 6 way hub.. and a vga cable running to my flat panel.. (all through the wall) and its a noisy fawker too hah, but its in a closet so it works well.
noise isn't an issue if your creative about placement. - MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The integrated graphics are Nvidia 6150LE. Also, this is the only motherboard that I've seen that actually has DVI and VGA ports on the back. It also has composite, S-Video, and COMPONENT VIDEO! It's the perfect board for HTPC use.
I actually have this motherboard and processor combo, and I'm even able to play fairly modern games at 1440x900 res. That's really good for integrated graphics. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4nice article. too bad i dont see many of these
well, thats it until iTV comes out and fanboys rage to protect the same ideals each camp swears by... ugh, i hate flame wars on digg... until then
rock on! - MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They did a pretty nice job, but I think they went overboard on a few of the components. They spent a few hundred dollars more than they needed to, and actually violated their objective of using low-power, quiet components.
For example, they probably should have gone with the 35W X2 3800+. It's $70 cheaper than what they used, and then they could have used a much cheaper cooler, and it still would have been more than powerful enough. They also spent about $50 too much on their RAM for no apparent reason.
Small things, I know, but it makes me question whether they were trying to build a machine that would be a capable full-time DVR and media center, or if they were trying to build something that would be good for normal use and multitasking.
That's always the problem I have with ExtremeTech articles - they seem to slightly miss the point of their own articles. A while ago, they wrote an article about building a solid, "budget" machine. They spent $1200 on it. When I think "budget", I think sub-$600 w/17" LCD. - MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Good luck adding multi-tuner HD-DVR functionality to your Xbox!
- aitf311, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Xbox is an awesome extender with XBMC installed, but for most people, a DVR is still going to be useful for a server. I have 1 PC with MCE on it that does my recording and then 3 other rooms with xbox's that connect to it, its very nice.
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2XBMC is better for.. bittorrent-ly aquired media (Although the one DVR, with Xbox's getting data of it is a nice idea). A Windows Media Center/MythTV system is better for TV (Although I did have a WinMCE system for a while, with no TV card, and it wasn't bad)...
If someone manages to get USB TV tuners to work with XBMC it would be great, or even to use something like VLC of a PC, and stream it, with the abilty to flick channels (Yes it's probably more practical to flick the TV input to a normal/Sky/Freeview TV tuner, but it wont use the same interface, and it's.. theoretically possible to record stuff on the Xbox)
I suppose it's possible to install MythTV on the Xbox, but I'd imagine it's a lot more work than setting up a PC..
Anyway.. This article seemed only to go over components, nothing relating to putting it together, OS, placement, connection to screen etc...
- Ben - truffle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'd like to see articles about building hybrid gaming / media pcs. This article has a bit at presents new options for gaming.the end suggesting throwing in a 7600 GS, that's nice but why not throw together a core 2 gaming rig with a decent card navigating that tricky balance between sound, heat, and raw pixel thrashing power?
As HDTVs get better and better quality the media gaming PC is going to become more and more of an option. Sure a console is what most people want, but we've reached the point where a massive HDTV combined with a powerful computer is enabling people to have state of the art PC gaming on their massive TVs. But can it happen in a way that is elegant and stylish? Someone please tell me. - MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think that a lot of people will not be happy with the iTV. It's basically only going to work with iTunes, and there are a lot of people who won't be buying movies on iTunes anytime soon.
With a living room PC, you have a lot more flexibility, and I think that when people start thinking about it and comparing price/functionality, they're going to be more likely to put a MacMini in the living room than an iTV.
I think that what Apple is up to will be perfect for some people, but I'll stick with media center PC. I'm more of a DVR guy than a $2/episode guy. - JDiZZle300Z, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2see last months Maxium PC. They had a 20 page or so break down article of this exact thing. very nice.
- jayang, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2nice work.
- BartSwordfish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not a bad article if you're trying to build the "ulitmate" home theater PC; however, there is a population of people that already have most of the traditional "home theater" components in place and probably have no intention of replacing them with PC components. If you believe you are one of those individuals, then you're probably in the market for a PVR (aka DVR) to replace your Tivo or Cable provider DVR solution. In short, there are much more cost effective solutions. Check out the instructional video about building a MythTV box from the guys at systm.org. The video doesn't provide all of the answers but it does show you what is possible with more affordable hardware. In short, I guess I'm just getting tired of tech articles that always focus on the ultimate cost-is-no-problem solution; however, I guess I should expect nothing less from a web site titled "Extreme Tech." Perhaps "Extreme Tech" is another way of saying "money is no object."
- MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have the same processor and motherboard that they use, and as I mentioned in an above comment, I'm able to play relatively new games at 1440x900 resolution. That's a lot more pixels than most living room HDTVs have, and pretty good for integrated graphics.
Add a passively-cooled discrete graphics card to this thing, and you have got enough power for most games, at HDTV resolution, and it's still silent. If you want something with SLI, it's inevitably going to be too loud for the living room when not gaming. - Lane, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3go with water cooling!! it looks better with the lights off and its uber quiet. whats an extra $80 for silent runnings??
- riflemann, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Everyone at my work has started buying these for their HTPC frontend. Totally silent (no moving parts) and component video, digital audio, USB, ethernet, remote and 54Mbps wireless. All fully supported under Linux. Price? 45 euros:
http://www.juski.co.uk/s100/
Everyone who's seen my setup has been blown away. - R0BBiE, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1why build one? when you can buy one of these for alot less!!!
http://www.airlinktek.com/english/prod_mg350.htm - aitf311, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I actually had a shuttle for a while, the form factor is great but when using it at an HTPC it overheated all the time. This may not represent newer shuttles but that's just my experience.
- ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Shuttle (Zen) ST62K. Only one small fan and onboard graphics with S-Video. Nice.
- JonDiggsIt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2its called an xbox... it's 150 bucks... 250 with a big hard drive... best htpc.
- liujimin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2wierd not to include a graphics card.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Is there anything worse than poorly designed sites FILLED WITH ADS and a paragraph of miniscule text on each page? Adblockers or not.
- Terc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I just traded in my xbox (the power supply gave out) for a mac mini. Front fow rocks, and now I use my bluetooth phone to controll it. scaling looks much better on my 8 foot screen since I've "switched" I just couldn't be happier. Granted, $200 for a modded xbox is cheaper than the mini, but the expandablility and additional uses for the mini made it worth it to me.
- chrizzler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1btw. "low power" 430w power supply. even when you don't use all the watts the power supply still is converting power and generates heat (just like power adapters for you mobile phone).. the heats need to be cooled.. when cooled by air it generates noise..
secondly.. more heat from you htpc needs to be transfered to outside the house, need more airco cooling, uses more electricity (ofcourse in the winter you can sit around the htpc for warmth :)), is more expensive. - huntrm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Overkill to the max by Extremetech. I built a HTPC with a connected media server over 3 years ago - costing far less. I use a P4 2.4 CPU, 512MB memory, Radeon 9600 non-pro (fanless), 100MB seagate drive - the entire system is fast, and the graphics card supports upscaling to 1080i.
Point is that one does not have to have a high CPU or a high graphics card - unless you're wanting to do gaming on the TV. Important that one considers their intentions before building one. My intentions were pictures, videos, DVDs, Music, and Weather - with a connected server that allowed for serious expansion of harddrive space (am up to 1.25TB).
I personally think people regret building a HTPC without doing the server as well (due to the ability to easily expand storage space and not have to 'mess with the client HTPC). - Gerz1219, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Agreed. A media center PC is only worth the money if you're building it from spare parts after an upgrade. If you're upgrading from, say an Athlon XP/64 AGP system, then you likely have old DDR memory, an AGP graphics card, a working CPU, and IDE hard drives. You just need to buy a cool looking case and an mATX motherboard, and you wind up getting a lot more value out of a purchase you made three years ago.
I have two HTPCs now, one with an old Athlon XP 2600+ and an Athlon 64 3000+, both with GeForce 5200 FX graphics cards (now about $35). Both of them handle recording and DivX playback without a hitch.
This Extremetech PC is kind of the worst of both worlds. It's WAY too powerful and expensive for 95% of media playback tasks, and yet not powerful enough to play Battlefield 2 in 1080p. Unless you want a balls-out gaming machine, you're better off piecing together a Frankenstein system from old parts or modding an XBox. And if you do want a balls-out gaming machine in the living room, you're better off getting an X360. - chrizzler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1WTF? a 430watt power? First rule for noiseless systems: avoid heat because you need to cool that, so you use parts that your little watt, and then you don't need a big power supply.. for a P4-2.8gig system I use a 200W power supply. And its superstable. Ofcourse you wont want to have a addon videocard.. but I wont play games on my HTPC.
grtz,
Chris - pabs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Where do you buy these, anyway?
- pabs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0In response to my own question, you can find them on eBay. But only on ebay.de:
http://search.ebay.de/search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=t-online+s100 - philz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Looks very good indeed!
I need to play HDTV, but for a XBMC replacement/alternative, this seems to be perfect! - philz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Ah, and I just ordered this baby:
http://www.ichbinleise.de/product_info.php?products_id=2651&language=en
HDMI, no Fan, Core Duo 2, 2 GB Ram, TV Card - hopefully it'll make me happy..
I could not find the Asus P5B-V DH Deluxe/HDMI in any retailer near me though, seems to be a very nice board.
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