I hope you don’t mind me completely copying your setup.
I’ve been thinking about building an HTPC for a few months now, and have finally started researching it.
By sheer coincidence, I got pointed to this blog while reading up on some completely unrelated stuff and couldn’t believe my luck.
Thanks for posting these specs. It really helps me get a feel for the low-power area of computing.
But yeah, I will be shamelessly ripping off your rig. Kthnx.
Do you have any experience using Sick Beard or Coucpotato with your home theater pc? Give them a shot. Nice build btw.
FYI in you are thinking about using the ITX Jeff spec’s here (or about 80% of other ITX motherboards for that matter), I have discovered through painful experience that most ITX MBs don’t support a PCIe x1 card (even though the PCIe spec says they should).
This ASRock H67M ITX MB has very spotty support for x1 PCIe cards (it would only boot the OS with 1 of the 4 cards I tried and then Win7 couldn’t see the card). This can be a real problem for a HTPC as every internal tuner card that I know of uses a PCIe x1 interface and this MB has an x16 interface.
I called ASRock and talked to their tech support. The guy was baffled that someone might want to use anything other than a x16 video card in the PCIe slot. I was equally baffled because I figure why would anyone buy a motherboard w/onboard video if they just wanted to replace it with a video card.
I found a Zotac board (H67-ITX) that, while it didn’t support x1 PCIe cards out of the box, when I flashed their 6/14/2011 BIOS update, it now supports my tuner card.
So, my advice is to call the manufacturer’s support line before ordering a motherboard and ask them about their level of support for x1 PCIe cards if the board has an x16 slot. Then, when you get it, test-boot with as many different PCIe cards as you can find while you’ve still got the opportunity to return the board.
While Atom/ION machines are extremely good, they do have a couple of major shortcomings for a HTPC, the first is that they don’t have enough grunt to decode 1080i content, which if you’re in the UK like me is a bit of a problem when all of the HD channels broadcast at 1080i.
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great website i liked your work. This ASRock H67M ITX MB has very spotty support for x1 PCIe cards (it would only boot the OS with 1 of the 4 cards I tried and then Win7 couldn’t see the card). This can be a real problem for a HTPC as every internal tuner card that I know of uses a PCIe x1 interface and this MB has an x16 interface.
Jesus Castillo <ahref= “http://eliminarlagrasa.com/tacfitcommando/”> Tacfit Commando
It’s pretty awesome to see the PicoPSU being used for serious tasks, since so much video decoding can be done via GPU now. My next big project is going to be finding the most powerful video card I can fit into 80 or 120 W (the other PicoPSU options) since I like to lightly game as well. I’ll probably give up quad-core and go back to dual, I’ve never used my HT/Game PC for serious encoding and that would actually give me more headroom for my main tasks.
Man, I wish there was a way to flag all this comment spam above.
Great, my advice is to call the manufacturer’s support line before ordering a motherboard and ask them about their level of support for x1 PCIe cards if the board has an x16 slot. Then, when you get it, test-boot with as many different PCIe cards as you can find while you’ve still got the opportunity to return the board.
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If, like me, you’re following the advice in this article, please take into account callingshotgun’s comment on May 16, 2011 9:14 AM :
Just an FYI, the blu-ray drive you link is a full-size internal blu-ray drive, which (from what I can tell from the specs) the case doesn’t have room for- You need a “slim” drive instead.
I love the idea of low power computing, but am wondering how low the wattage could be kept on a htpc/gaming box. Only really need to be able to play Diablo 3, but i’ve got a feeling Blizzard’s trend for low specs isn’t going to continue with this game. I’m dying to get rid of my gaming consoles and multiple computers, replacing it all with the one system in the living room. My 1st gen ps3 alone runs at over 200w playing blu-rays.
Why would you go for an Intel system? AMD now has a better solution... AMD Fusion. The new APU's from AMD are way more poweful and ironicly enough, cheaper as well.
Whay I would recommend:
a mITX with an AMD Fusion A4 or A6 processor and about 4-8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz Ram...
Something silimar to a Alienware X51, but at a way better value. Alienware is trash :)
With this system you have a lot more performance, and even the possibility to play games on your HTPC...
Xenoware is a young company that sells game pc's and game computers, they also build fully customised projects if you ask them trough the contact form.