are htpc even worth it anymore?

[hanssone]

My Htpc is my main pc, it is super flexible in all scenarios both in hardware and software. Best internet experience with chrome and all the awesome plugins for youtube, twitch and so on, Supports all file formarts and super smooth playback with MPC-HC, soundcard with exceptional sound quality and software tweaks, Steam gaming with steam controller + thousand of games to play with incredible backward compatibility, Windows and the millions applications to choose from, works pretty well across my android phone with apps like pushbullet, pc remote. Nothing coming close to this, its not even a discussion in my book.

[ShaithEatery]

I dont know how relevant this is to the post but its possible to build a completely silent passive pc, and personnaly i like having a fully capable machine instead of having to rely on streaming

 

I agree.  I tested Steam In-Home streaming with my HTPC and both not so great quality and input delay were too much for me.  Mine can run games like Dark Souls at 1080p 60fps natively which is great.

 

As far as silence goes, if you want something that can run well and be as quiet as possible, it's a challenge to build a completely passively-cooled, small and compact machine that can run decently demanding games.  I just got a Noctua CPU cooler and put the Noctua low noise adapters on both the cpu intake fan and the two gpu fans (case is an FTZ01, one fan above cpu, two above video card).  I can't hear anything unless nothing is playing, which to me makes it silent enough if I don't notice it while watching or playing something.

[ShaithEatery]

Sorry for two posts in a row, but relevant to the original topic as to whether they're worth it or not, if you do plan on doing something like this there is one major headache that seems like a constant battle for me; how to control everything.  It may not be worth it to some to figure out how to control all the different environments you can have in an HTPC compared to a pre-made box that's designed with a controller or remote from the ground up.  For example, a lot of the stuff I watch I have to use a mouse-mode on my 360 controller to control the courser to select.  This includes things like Netflix and Hulu for the most part.  My initial plan was to have everything going off of the Windows Store Apps for both of these, and I came to realize that there is no way to navigate these apps (unless the dev implements it, which they of course haven't) without a mouse.  I also haven't been able to get NetfliXBMC to work inside of Kodi reliably, so that's out too.  Thankfully the program I use to let my 360 controller navigate the start menu, XBStart, has a mouse mode where I can move the mouse with the left thumbstick, but it's not as elegant as being able to select things with the D-Pad.

 

With that in mind, I can imagine that makes the concept of building an HTPC even less likely to be worth it to most depending on what you want out of it.  But if you don't mind the initial setup/config pains of making all of these parts and pieces work, and have the hardware or don't mind spending the money on the hardware to do it, I'm still in love with my HTPC and find myself sometimes not even turning on my main rig after work if I just feel like relaxing.

[linusis]

If you live in a country where there's no netflix, prime, etc etc or you wouldn't spend money on subscription anyway, yes it might be still worth it for movies. As of gaming, imo not really with all the streaming going on, but if you have money to waste you can build a little 4k machine to play play 4k60fps on your couch if that's what you want. Oh and it's fun building them and choosing the parts

[AshleyAshes]

I honestly never understood the quest for super silent HTPCs.  Right my my 'HTPC' is a full on 3770K with a Corsair H60 cooler on it and an XFX Radeon 7950, it's all desktop parts.  Is it loud?  Well, from here on the couch, if I turned off the TV and other appliances, I could probably hear it maybe.  It's obviuosly a bit louder when running games.  Want to know what drowns the sounds out?  The television.

[applesuxD]

I honestly never understood the quest for super silent HTPCs. Right my my 'HTPC' is a full on 3770K with a Corsair H60 cooler on it and an XFX Radeon 7950, it's all desktop parts. Is it loud? Well, from here on the couch, if I turned off the TV and other appliances, I could probably hear it maybe. It's obviuosly a bit louder when running games. Want to know what drowns the sounds out? The television.

If i can afford htpc ill probably invest in A set of surround speakers or wireless headphones anyways