My 1st Media Center - Cheap Setup, will it work?

[Batou]

Hello,

Firstly thank you to this forum organizers and users, its great to see a local forum with this level of information in it. I have been looking around this forum and other sources for parts for my first Media Center PC.

Here's what I have put together.

ASUS P5N-EM-HDMI
E6550 2.33 GHz 1333 MHz 4 MB
Hauppage 2200 MCE
2x1G A-data
Asus NSK2480B (w/EarthWatts 380W)
Logitech Cordless Desktop EX110
Rock Remote Control for Vista
+ old Pioneer 108 DVD burner
TOTAL $640

My Question is the CPU/Motherboard combo, will it be sufficient for Dual HDTV recording/playback, DVD upscaling, Blue-Ray playback (getting a drive later on when they come down).

Will the on-board graphics card (GeForce 7100) be sufficient for the media center?
I'm looking at microATX both because of the size and because of the case, plus its $120 and comes with a PSU.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers,
Mike

[Mox]

Every thing there looks great except for the onboard video. I would opt for a standalone card in place of the on board video especially if you have bluray playback in mind. Something like a ATI 3450, or NVIDIA 8600 just make sure if you opt for the Nvidia option you get the card with DDR3 ram not DDR2.

[logifuse]

The 7100 will probably be OK initially - its main failing is that it doesn't offer any hardware acceleration for decoding video. It would probably be fine for SD/HD TV, DVD & AVI playback, but it might be borderline for 1080 BD or MKV. You can always add a graphics card down the track if you hit the wall.

Case is great - I've upgraded mine with a better power supply (mainly to use one with a 120mm fan), but the included one is fine. Remember, the optical drive bay is exposed, so an optical drive with no screen prnting on the front looks better.

The A-DATA RAM - I would suggest spending a little more for some Corsair or Kingston - I've found A-DATA almost impossible to get replaced if you get dud sticks.

Justin

[scott_mckenzie]

I bought an ASUS m3a78-emh hdmi motherboard. It has a Radeon H3200 graphics chipset.
Works perfectly with BLU-Ray.... Only qualifier I have is that I have not yet tried to record HDTV and play blu-ray back.... Mind you that shouldn't have anything to do with graphics, and it should be fine anyway as I have 4gb ram, and a Phenom 9550 CPU.

Hope this helps.

Scott

[Batou]

Originally Posted by Mox

Every thing there looks great except for the onboard video. I would opt for a standalone card in place of the on board video especially if you have bluray playback in mind. Something like a ATI 3450, or NVIDIA 8600 just make sure if you opt for the Nvidia option you get the card with DDR3 ram not DDR2.

Cheers, the good thing is that this board is the cheapest microATX board that I'm looking at, so even if I did want to get a separate video card now or down the line when I reach the 7100's limitations, it wouldn't have been more expensive than going for a different board with or without on-board video.

Originally Posted by logifuse

The A-DATA RAM - I would suggest spending a little more for some Corsair or Kingston - I've found A-DATA almost impossible to get replaced if you get dud sticks.

Justin

Thanks for the note on that RAM, doesn't matter which one I choose as far as price goes, they are all pretty much the same, I Just had A-DATA in the build because it was just first on MSY's list

Originally Posted by scott_mckenzie

I bought an ASUS m3a78-emh hdmi motherboard. It has a Radeon H3200 graphics chipset.
Works perfectly with BLU-Ray.... Only qualifier I have is that I have not yet tried to record HDTV and play blu-ray back.... Mind you that shouldn't have anything to do with graphics, and it should be fine anyway as I have 4gb ram, and a Phenom 9550 CPU.

Hope this helps.

Scott

Recording HDTV and simultaneous BLU-Ray/HD-DVD playback should have more to do with the CPU like you mentioned, so I'm a little worried that the E6550 might not be enough.

That M3A78-EMH HDMI board is just as cheap as the ASUS P5N-EM-HDMI, I admit that I haven't looked at AMD hardware recently, last year when I bought my machine they were no where near the performance of intel's Dual Core CPU's.

Just had a look at the Phenom 9550, same as the intel Quads, uses too many watts for my liking - when you think about power usage/heat/noise. Will check out some of their dual cores though.

Originally Posted by logifuse

it might be borderline for 1080 BD or MKV.

Yeah, I'm interested in looking at the board you have and the one that Scott has mentioned, both have on the ASUS site that they have "Blu-ray / HD DVD Playback"

[logifuse]

AMD CPU based systems are in the box seat when it comes to onboard graphics systems. The Nvidia alternative to the board mentioned by Scott is the Asus M3N78-EMH HDMI (as you picked up) - I'm very happy with it. Mine does 1080p MKV easily - haven't tried full Bluray, but as AVC decoders that support hardware acceleration come on board (e.g. Arcsoft's), it won't be a problem.

There is a 9350(AKA 9350e) Phenom that is 65watts - worth a look, but everyone with a 4850e is pretty happy.

Justin

[Batou]

Well, this is what I have came up with:

CPU AM2 Athlon 64x2 Dual Core 4850e (2.5GHz/45w) $99.00
Motherboard Asus M3N78-EMH-HDMI AM2+ GF8200 $89.00
RAM 2G Kit-800(2x1G) Kingston $54.00
Keyboard Logitech Cordless Desktop EX110 $39.00
Case Asus NSK2480B (w/EarthWatts 380W) $119.00
TV Tuners Hauppage 2200 MCE Analogue / Dual-Digital TV Tuner PCI-Express x1 card w/FM radio, OEM for Media Centre LOW PROFILE CARD ONLY $187.00
Remote Rock Remote Control for Windows Vista $29.95
DVD Current Pioneer 108BLK DVD Burner
HDD Current 120/500GB HDDs
BLU-Ray/HD-DVD player at a later date.

$616.95

Look familiar Logifuse? It should do, by chance its pretty much what you have in your Sig!!

I chose the M3N78 over the M3A78 due to it supporting S/PDIF out and also seems to have slightly better Northbridge performance when comparing reviews of the 8200 vs 780G

So I end up saving a few dollars compared with the Intel system that I started with, and I'm now confident that it will perform a lot better with proper HD decoding via the on-board graphics.

Thanks for all your help!

[logifuse]

You should do pretty well with that. Check out my posts & Audiophile's posts when you get to the set up stage - we both had initial troubles, but with the latest (0507) BIOS, things are very good.

Very good pricing BTW - where are you sourcing from?

The HVR-2200 is a low profile card, but it comes with both full & low profile brackets (mine did anyway) - make sure the one you've listed has the full height bracket.

The motherboard doesn't have SPDIF on the back panel, but you can easily make an adaptor to connect to the SPDIF headers on the mobo (I adapted a cable that came with my 8500GT that isn't currently in use). See Google Images for what's involved (it's a simple 2 wire connection). Here's a good example.

The HDMI audio can do 8 channel LPCM, but I haven't bothered at this stage.

Justin

[dgaust]

Also try the hauppauge remote instead of the Rock remote. The hauppauge is apparenty very close to the old MS remote.

[Batou]

Originally Posted by logifuse

You should do pretty well with that. Check out my posts & Audiophile's posts when you get to the set up stage - we both had initial troubles, but with the latest (0507) BIOS, things are very good.

Very good pricing BTW - where are you sourcing from?

Cheers, I've bookmarked them for then, have to wait a month or 2 till I can get the most important part, a Full HD LCD

Prices were taken from the cheapest on http://www.staticice.com.au
I'll end up having to pay a little bit more to get the parts all at one or two places and a little for postage, browsing through the results most of the parts will come from MSY/Umart(Auburn) both pickup and Umart(Online) postage.

I'll make sure that the has both brackets, looking at the cheapest option on staticice it only comes with the low profile bracket.

Originally Posted by logifuse

The motherboard doesn't have SPDIF on the back panel, but you can easily make an adaptor to connect to the SPDIF headers on the mobo (I adapted a cable that came with my 8500GT that isn't currently in use). See Google Images for what's involved (it's a simple 2 wire connection). Here's a good example.

Yeah, I noticed on the asus website that the SPDIF was only internal connector, I've got plenty of those cables and RCA plugs lying around, should be easy enough. Thanks for the links.

Originally Posted by dgaust

Also try the hauppauge remote instead of the Rock remote. The hauppauge is apparenty very close to the old MS remote.

They both look nearly identical appart from shape. Is there any significant difference between the 2? better drivers? more function buttons? works better with the HVR 2200?

Cheers,
Mike