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Building a cheap HTPC

Jay123
By Jay123
in Home Theater Equipment
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So I currently have a mass collection of media stored on my main gaming PC in my room, however if I want to watch any of this on my 50" TV downstairs I have to put on a flash drive/external HDD and watch it on my laptop via HDMI to the TV.

 

This is where a HTPC comes in. All I need to do is to be able to transfer files from my PC to my HTPC over my network, store several TBs of data on a HTPC and hook it up to my TV via HDMI. How much should I spend on the hardware (I was thinking Athlon x4 640 territory)? What is the best way to control the HTPC from my couch?

 

BTW,  the mobo doesn't have to have HDMI as I have a 6570 that I will put in for some light gaming

"An Excellent Signature"

 

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Well HTPC's CAN be expensive depending on the hardware you load. I will give you an example of mine. My requirement was silent and mass storage.

 

For the silent part I needed to replace the stock cooler (zalman CNPS8000) because even though you may think a regular everyday PC is quiet, you only truly notice silence when you are watching movies and you want dead quiet because you will hear that little fan buzzing away. I also got a fanless seasonic PSU( seasonic X-460) for same reason. This might be less important depending on room layout and where you are placing the HTPC.

 

The storage portion comes down to the case you choose. I wanted something to look good and fit in with all my high end theater gear so I got a silverstone GD08 for the aesthetics and the amount of drives (12) it could hold and I have WD green drives.

 

I control my HTPC with a USB IR transceiver and harmony remote, works well. I am using XBMC as my interface and all of the codes you need to program your remote can be found online.

[Case] Phanteks Eclipse P400S TG (Air Mesh) || [CPU] Ryzen 7 5800X || [Cooler] Dark Rock Slim || [Mobo] ROG STRIX B550-F || [RAM] 32GB Trident Z RGB 3600MHz CL16

[GPU] XFX MERC319 Radeon RX 6950XT || [SSD] 1TB WD SN550 M.2 NVME || [HDD] 6TB Seagate IronWolf 7200 || [PSU] Corsair AX850

[Display] LG 27GL850 @ 2560x1440 - 144Hz || [Mouse] ROG Gladius II || [Keyboard] ROG Strix Flare (Cherry MX Red) || [Speakers] 2.1 Logitech Z-3 || [Fans] 3x 120mm Corsair LL RGB

 

Theater Room - My 11.1 Home Theater

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Well HTPC's CAN be expensive depending on the hardware you load. I will give you an example of mine. My requirement was silent and mass storage.

 

For the silent part I needed to replace the stock cooler (zalman CNPS8000) because even though you may think a regular everyday PC is quiet, you only truly notice silence when you are watching movies and you want dead quiet because you will hear that little fan buzzing away. I also got a fanless seasonic PSU( seasonic X-460) for same reason. This might be less important depending on room layout and where you are placing the HTPC.

 

The storage portion comes down to the case you choose. I wanted something to look good and fit in with all my high end theater gear so I got a silverstone GD08 for the aesthetics and the amount of drives (12) it could hold and I have WD green drives.

 

I control my HTPC with a USB IR transceiver and harmony remote, works well. I am using XBMC as my interface and all of the codes you need to program your remote can be found online.

Thanks, I think I'll just built a HTPC out of my current parts + some extra storage when I upgrade probably in a year or so.

"An Excellent Signature"

 

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