What's in Your HTPC? (1 Viewer)

[JordanM]

Asus Crosshair V Formula M/B
AMD FX-6100 CPU o'clocked a bit
nVidia GT 520 GPU with 2GB and HDMI 1.4
4 HDDs all SATA 3, 7.5 TB total
Lian Li PC-C33B RT case
16GB USB 3.0 Patriot flash for ReadyBoost
LG 10X Blu Ray Unit
WMC remote
Harmony remote USB connection
Splash Pro EX for file playback, PowerDVD 12 Ultra for Blu Ray.
2 x 1 GB LAN connections

Plus old PC server with 19TBs storage.

All HD flicks.

We play music over house LAN from our PCs.

HTPC is HDMI into 7.1 AVR, and AVR is HDMI to Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-151FD

I get 7.1 audio, and video only on the TV. We can get all the online TV and music as well.

 

[xfett]

Why are you overclocking an HTPC ? Plus your FX-6100 iGPU is more than capable of HD video/audio no need for the GT 520. Little overkill for an HTPC.

 

[JordanM]

I only slightly o'clock it. And while the FX-6100 may be capable of HD, there is no video or HDMI on the M/B.

And, yes, it may be overkill but 1. it works very well, and 2. it was built mostly from the extra parts bin.

Now, back on topic, what's in yours?

 

[xfett]

Main HTPC specs...
AMD Phenom II x4 945
Scythe Big Shuriken Cooler
MSI 890GXM-G65
XFX HD 6570
LG SHB-123L Blu Ray drive
OCZ VERTEX 3 120GB
500 GB Seagate
2 - 2 TB WD
SILVERSTONE Lascala LC13B case
Second HTPC specs...
Intel G530
Asrock H67M-ITX
120 WD 2.5 drive
PicoPSU 90
Custom case made from an old Sony BDP-S500
totally silent no fans
FreeNAS server specs...
Freenas 8.0.2
ASROCK E350M1
Pareema 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Intel EXPI9301CTBLK NIC
5 - WD20EARS 2TB HDD
picoPSU-150-XT
Raidmax ITX case
2 - Noctua NF-R8-1800
TP-LINK Gigabyte 5 port switch
URC MX 880 remote
URC MRF-260 RF base
MediaBrowser + Shark007 codecs pack plays every HD file I have (mkv, mt2s, divx...etc). Only use my Blu ray drive for ripping never to play discs. I have a stand alone player for that rental disc I dont care to buy.

 

[JeremySt]

Gateway SX Desktop with external BR drive. Content all stored on WD elements external drives. Wireless acer keyboard for control on the coffee table.
Acer Revo Aspire 3610 upstairs.
Both running XBMC with Quartz Skin.
The gateway is incredible. Quiet and fast. Sometimes Im tempted to build a dedicated HTPC or buy something more powerful, but the gateway really is without any noticable shortcomings.

 

[Rick P.]

Family room HTPC:
- AMD Athlon II x4 641
- Some nVidia 520-series fanless video card
- LG Blu Ray drive (open every now and then to blow off the dust and rip new discs, otherwise not really used...)
- OCZ VERTEX 3 60GB
- SILVERSTONE GD04 case
- 4 GB RAM (overkill for a HTPC)
- Antec 80+ silver power supply
- Ubuntu 12.04, XBMC Eden
- Logitec C910 camera for Skype
- Wireless keyboard and mouse
- Universal HT remote (don't use, prefer mouse and keyboard)
Theatre HTPC
- Acer Revo R3610 (1.6 GHz Atom 330 cpu, Ion GPU, 2 GB RAM)
- Ubuntu 12.04, XBMC Eden
- driving Viewsonic Pro 8100 projector onto a 110" screen
iPad 3 with Plex and XBMC remote (mobile Google machine)
Playbook with XBMC remote; watch videos loaded directly - haven't got around to loading Plex yet (use this 10 hours for every hour I use the iPad. I'd ditch the iPad before this)
WD TV Live box for the basement RPTV; OK but the menus are slow and it has trouble with some of my music (FLAC format maybe?)
24x7 file server and office workstation box
- AMD FX-8120 on Gigabyte 990-fxa-UD3 motherboard (extreme overkill for a file server!!!)
- 8 GB RAM
- Big-ass CPU cooler
- OCZ Vertex 120 GB boot drive
- Antec DF-85 tower
- nVidia 240 GPU card
- Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 SAS / SATA controller
- Antec 80+ gold power supply
- Currently 19 TB storage, mostly linux software RAID 5 arrays. 900 or so HD movies, thousands of TV episodes, 85,000+ songs. I only have room for 18 TB more before I have to expand outside the case
- Cyberpower 1000PFCLCD UPS (because having a RAID server lose power isn't generally a good thing)
- Ubuntu 12.04 running a bunch of services including my Plex server
All of my TV comes off the internet through the server. I have a high-def DISH receiver that I might turn on once a month and the XBMC in the family room will play blu rays from the LG drive but I don't use it. I also don't use any of my stand-alone drives anymore. Because I use Linux the only software I've had to pay for was the iPad Plex app. Gotta love open source

 

[JordanM]

I have added a 12TB server, that can hold far more. But since I want 4 or more TB, I have been watching sales.

 

[JordanM]

I just moved my HTPC and both servers into our living room, painted a week ago. Now the rooms that the PCs were in are getting painted so they are moved. Well that's crimped the entire Home Theater as that room is being painted so all the surround speakers are unhooked and off the walls and the stand the TV is on is moved as well.

Next week, it all goes back together. This time, I get a cleaner connection. Next!

 

[robcy]

Windows 7 64-bit
AMD A8-3870K Unlocked Llano 3.0GHz
Biostart A75MH FM1
GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2 x 4GB)
LITE-ON Black 12X BD-ROM
2 x WD Blue WDBAAX5000ENC-NRSN 500GB 7200 RPM (no RAID)
Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad-tuner Card
Small Gamer Case I had around.
Bright House Digital Cable w/ Road Runner internet
Vivitek H1081 1080p projector
80" Screen
Sound via Fiber Cable connected to a Samsung Blue Ray Player 5.1 receiver.
2 x HP x280n Media Extenders

Upcoming Upgrades:
2nd Ceton InfiniTV PCIe card
3rd HP x280n Extender
6TB storage (movies)
2TB storage (recorded TV)
128GB SSD as primary on the HTPC.

 

[mattCR]

Just redone my set:

Main Room:

I7-3770K
Gigabyte Z77
16G DDR3-1600
ATI 7790 Video
Ceton Cable Card Tuner
HD-DVD+BluRay Combo ROM
QAM/Analog Tuner (ATSC Generic Media Center compliant)
On the network: Silicon Dust 6 Tuner HDTV Cable Card Device
256Gb SSD (Boot)
5TB (3TB+2TB) Local Video Storage
Win7 Pro, Media Center, Media Browser..
JVC DLA-RS56U 4k Projector

Network Closet:
WHS (V1) w/12TB Right now
ReadyNAS 316 w/24TB (Video Storage)
ReadyNAS 316 w/12TB (Music and Backups Storage)
Just put in 24P Managed Gigabit (Upgraded from 16)


As I'm working on the new home theater (Posts coming soon) this room also keeps my network music storage, etc.

Front Room:

H61 + I3-3225
LiteOn DVDRW
Windows 8**
16GB DDR3-1333
500GB Western Digital Blue HDD
No tuners/etc. it all connects to the primary media center.

Bedroom:

Ceton Echo
MS XBOX

Kid's Room:
Ceton Echo


My main media center in the livingroom is about to go under a real upgrade. I've been upgrading small pieces here and there, recently the ATI card for some encoding work and also to make Civ a little bit more playable without increasing a lot of noise. But now that I'm building a closet for a lot of this, I'm rethinking how I want to do it. I'll probably have a new build mapped out soon.

 

[robcy]

Just redone my set:

Main Room:

I7-3770K
Gigabyte Z77
16G DDR3-1600
ATI 7790 Video
Ceton Cable Card Tuner
HD-DVD+BluRay Combo ROM
QAM/Analog Tuner (ATSC Generic Media Center compliant)
On the network: Silicon Dust 6 Tuner HDTV Cable Card Device
256Gb SSD (Boot)
5TB (3TB+2TB) Local Video Storage
Win7 Pro, Media Center, Media Browser..
JVC DLA-RS56U 4k Projector

That is one serious HTPC. Congrats on that build.

 

[Hanson]

Just built a new HTPC a month ago. The main focus was on getting as quiet a system as possible, as the old HTPC was quite audibly loud (and at 6 years old, getting long in the tooth).

Case: Fractal Design Mini Case. I chose this case because 1) it looked nice (more like an A/V component than a computer) and 2) it comes with generous soundproofing (about .5 inches thick). There are two very quiet case fans as well. I had never spent more than $40 on a case before, but I will definitely invest more in the future, because everything fit together perfectly -- all screw holes aligned perfectly, and the side panel slides on and off effortlessly.

Processor/Mobo: Intel Core i3-3225 and Intel BOXDH77DF micro ATX. I chose the processor for it's low heat (it runs at 55W) and the motherboard was selected because it had onboard Firewire, which is necessary for recording off of my cable box. Also the 3225 has video on chip, so I didn't need to purchase a separate video card.

HDD: Samsung 120GB SSD, 2TB WD HDD, 2TB Hitachi HDD. I wanted to try out SSD for the boot partition. The system is up and running in 24 seconds from a cold boot, so mission accomplished. I needed larger drives to stores all of my HD recordings.

PSU: SeaSonic SS-400FL2. This is a fanless power supply, and I opened my wallet for the extra silence. But within a week, it started malfunctioning and I had to get it RMA'd. I'm using a 500W ATX PSU right now, and it turns out the SeaSonic was overkill -- it isn't any noisier with the regular PSU (probably due to the soundproofing on the case).

RAM: 4GB Kingston 1600MHz DDR3. Why not more? Because...

OS: Windows 7 32 bit. Why 32 bit? Because there are no 64 bit firewire drivers for my cable box.

Keyboard: Logitech K400r. This is my favorite HTPC keyboard. It's super light and the travel on the keys are great. The one feature it's missing is a scroll wheel.

Because the PC is so quiet, I moved it straight into my AV rack. In fact, it's so quiet that i now realize how noisy the fan on my DLP TV is (which is the next candidate for replacement).

For clear QAM recording, I use the HD Homerun tuner.

 

[mattCR]

That is one serious HTPC. Congrats on that build.

It's probably going to be demoted soon. It's been a build that I have just upgraded piece by piece as time went on, and now that I'm in the middle of building out my theater, I'm looking to do it a bit different. Since now everything will be contained in a closet a bit of a distance from the listening area, I'm not as worried about volume issues.

We'll see, we're trying to figure it out now.

 

[Rockfella]

AMD Phenom 560, Gigabyte GA78LMT-USB3, Corsair 4GB, 1250 TH HDD, Corsair VX450, Corsair Carbide 400R, DellSP2208WFP, Asus Xonar DX, Onkyo HTS3500... no flat screen yet.

 

[Rockfella]

AMD Phenom 560, Gigabyte GA78LMT-USB3, Corsair 4GB, 1250 TH HDD, Corsair VX450, Corsair Carbide 400R, DellSP2208WFP, Asus Xonar DX, Onkyo HTS3500... no flat screen yet.

Upgraded after almost 9 years in Feb 2023 :
Ryzen 5 7600-Peerless Assassin 120 SE-Gigabyte B650M GAMING X AX-Gskill DDR5 32GB 6000-Gigabyte Eagle 6700XT-LG Ultragear 32GN650-Corsair RM650-Havit HV-KB366L-Logitech G102-5x Artic Silver 140mms-Carbide 400R-FiiO E10/M40x-Fiio K5 Pro/LP6-FiiO M5/BLON-3.