I'm thinking about spending my xmas bonus on a new pc/mulitmedia system to sit under the tv, allowing me to play dvd/radio/mp3 etc etc via remote control/on screen display which will allow me to get rid of the 4 seperate units I have at the moment.
Does anyone have one of these machines (MSi is a name that is standing out at the moment) or any words of wisdom?
msi? the motherboard? are you going to build your own?
hmm, I think you're asking the same thing I am. How would I go about building one or converting my current PC to one?
msi? the motherboard? are you going to build your own?
i think he is talking about the msi HTPC things. you can buy them barebone at newegg and whatnot.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-101-223&depa=0
i think he is talking about the msi HTPC things. you can buy them barebone at newegg and whatnot.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-101-223&depa=0
Yes those are the ones I'm on about - barebones.... shame apple don't make one - I would imagine it would look pretty sweet under my TV.
got it. msi make pretty good boards, so i'm guessing the barebones kit will be fine.
my gf built herself a shuttle, and it's sweet. sff is great for htpc. 
jaggedfel, building is easy. do you have a particular question about building?
I do the whole HTPC thing. I wish TwistedCPU was still around to give you info from a thread I started. I currently use a MSI mobo with a AMD2100 CPU, nVidia 5600 GFX, Gig of ram and a 30gig HD. I dual-boot XP/Linux. The XP side acts as a normal PC. The Linux side runs a frontend called Myth-TV. HTPC News is also a great reference.
I'm about to buy soon too...
One thing to think about with htpc is that you want the machine to run quiet (meaning running cool as possible is important). A good resource for quiet pccs (lots of SFF folks there too!) is SilentPCreview and their forums have an insane amount of good information.
So, from what i've seen... stay away from intel (unless your going lightweight pentium m) because the heat they put out is stupid when it comes to dealing with it in a small case. Plus they are inefficient power-consumption/performance wise, so your dealing with more constraint on what you can load your powersource with (sff ps's are lower wattage than you might be used to) - an issue if your thinking about the new high end vid. cards. Depends on if your going to game on it too, if so go for AMD (run cooler, suck less juice, better for games, cheaper for same/better performance ). Only minor Intel + may be hyperthreading for multitasking.
Most importantly i think, is to be careful to not get sucked in by lcd fronts + non-os media playability unless thats very important to you. Some of the cases with flashy front ends have bigger drawbacks elsewhere. And these are sff so you can have low flexibility in the future if you scrimp on a feature or two:
ie. alot of these boxes have 1 pci and 1 agp slot, so quality of onboard audio becomes important if you want the pci slot for something else.
Also... check out that spcr forum link.. many of these sff's aren't as good (performance and noisewise) as the company pr makes them out to be.
Heres what what i've been thinking of getting just after christmas:
-Black Shuttle XPC SN95G5 Barebone (240w powersupply + nVidia nForce3 Ultra motherboard)
-AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 939 Pin (i think winchester is what i want)
-1 stick of 1gb ram (buy another 1gb stick a year later for the second slot... dual channel doesn't make enough of a difference to warrant 2*512mb for 1 year)
-ATI 9800 (from my old computer)
-160gb samsung spinpoint (probably build an external storage block later)
-the quietest (when reading) dual layer dvd burner i can find
-Dell UltraSharp 2005FPW (same panel as the iMac 20", but sounds like some backlight bleeding issues in some screens so pick carefully).
haven't decided on the tv tuner card... ati HDTV card sounds like complete garbage. Must.. Have.... Remote!!!
Once i get it, i'll probably mod the ps fan for a quieter one, and swap the case fan for a nexus. The only problem really will be fitting good cooling/fan for the 9800.
I've got a computer right now with a fan stuck at 6000 rpm (f'ing intel motherboards suck ****), so i can't wait to not hear the new one when its done.
From the pricing i've done, i'll be able to build this for 1000$ less than what i would bto a 20" g5 Imac for (in canada, the imac is more expensive exchange-rate wise than it is in the US). God i wish i could run OSX on this (no pearpc 
).
edit: I had looked at the msi mega 865 before and the intel-only turned me away from it immediately. Google for reviews on it: its going to run hot, so the fans are going to be consistently running at a higher RPM. Unfortunately, the amd offerings of msi are a bit outdated - 462 sockets.
wow - thanks guys. This is some invaluable info and those sites will keep me busy.
Thanks for the heads up on Intel, I usually stay away from intel anyways, but concidering those MSi boxes are intel only, I need to look else where.
well i have windows xp mce on my pc i built myself. no tuner card but i am getting one for my birthday. you can get xp mce from [cough]irc://irc.betasirc.com/[/cough] and my pc specs are a Tyan Trinity K7 mobo (i know its old but it runs quite well) with an AMD Athlon 950 proc and an nvidia geforce fx 5200. it runs great for media center.
In response to realitybath1, you have to be careful when using a sff case.
The cooler running, lower wattage power supplies suck when using a high end video card.
Problem is the ATI 9800 and higher cards require that your PC has a 400 watt power supply or you void the warranty. This is to ensure the cooling fan has the proper power to keep the VPU cool.
The ATI 9800 all-in-wonder cards are awesome, I haven't seen a good HDTV tuner card yet that doesn't require a remote. I hate that too. I have the 9800 AIW board with the DVI out for HDTV and it's beautiful.
I'll be upgrading as soon as the newer ATI cards come down in price.
I'm an avid nVidia hater, so I won't use them at all. Every nVidia card I have ever owned has died after a very short life span.
hey rjonstone, good point.
I think though that the ps/vid card point might be a bit overstated... (my 9800 min spec is 300w and it runs perfectly on that ) 
. The drive/peripheral load on a ps in a sff tends to be lower (less extra harddrives, less pci cards, etc).
There are actually official lists for supported cards for alot of these sff's on sites like shuttle, and the higher end cards (x800 and 6800) are supported. I've read quite alot of posts by people who are running those cards in sffs.
But, yeah, thats one thing i still don't understand completely... the consistently lower wattage ps's in sffs whilst still running high end cards. There's a couple of threads at silentpc that make me think that there are legitimate reasons that running a high end card on a sff is technically sound (ps efficiency and honesty in specification issues). I'll have to find them.
I don't understand it either, but I also don't want to void a warranty on a $300.00 + video card.
I mean I can always lie and say my system met specs if it cooks, but that's just not right.
I know Intel and AMD both are trying to lower the power consumption of their CPU's, but there are also so many add-ons available for systems that it almost offsets the savings.
Plug in a few USB 2.0 or Firewire devices that are not using there own power supply. It can put a substantial draw on the PC's power supply.
Most don't realize it, but by simply attaching two or more external Firewire drives can draw anywhere from 5 to 50 watts of power. Depends on the drives size and such.
FYI... USB ports can't provide enough power to run an external HD, only Firewire can if you use the 6 pin cable, 4 pin Firewire cables do not provide power.
hey rjohnstone... i found some good info: xbit article conclusions
new graphics cards from ATI, based on the RADEON X800 Pro and X800 XT Platinum Edition, have practically the same power consumption and heat dissipation in the Burn mode as the top-end products of the previous generation
and
thermal environment will even improve in those cases when you have no “heavy” 3D applications running.
also, on ps requirements, this spcr page is really good (the sections "How Much Power is Enough?" and "POWER SHMOWER
or How PSU Power Ratings Mean Almost Nothing"). Of note is
(an amd 3500 + will draw less power than that p4 - in fact, the highest end non-fx amd 64 won't outdo a p4 2.8 ghz chip in terms of power requirements). That article is a little dated but not by much.Our own experience shows idle AC power consumption of 60~90W, and about 110~130W at 100% CPU utilization in several fairly representative mid-line test systems. Given the typical 65~70% effiiciency of a PSU, the DC power delivered is 40~60W at idle and 80~90W maximum. In other words, the amount of power actually required by typical desktop systems is about 30% of the capacity of the typical 300W power supply. The highest DC power draw we have seen from any desktop PC is ~180W (System details: P4-3.2, 512MB RAM, dual SATA drives, ATI9800XT, Zalman 400 PSU).
I know there is a good tomshardware article about this issue somewhere too.
It points out that there are micro-powerspike issues. But anyways, psu quality is as important as wattage claims.
Also, if for example, you look at the shuttle's, they come with a bto option for a 6800 gt, which i would be very suprised if it wasn't warranteed (the 6800 has to be hotter than a x800 i think?). I think the ati min. spec is to take into account crappy psu's, and i don't think they would refuse to warrantee a card from a high quality sff psu, especially if you can bto a similar card in that sff. (I'm still looking into this).
I didn't think of the external storage power issues though.. i'll look into that when i end up going down that route... i didn't know about that usb/firewire issue, so thanks for the info. (I'm assuming you can build an external raid array with its own small power source)
(i'll come back to this thread after christmas 
)
edit: you may have problems getting to that spcr page... the non-forum part of that site is having problems, probably gettin' rebuilt after they go hacked a couple of days ago.
edit2: the spcr advice should be moderated if you plan to overclock.
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