2011-04-25, 23:10
I built this up last week and thought I would share my experiences and thoughts... This build is on a minimum install of ubuntu 10.10.
[case] Rosewill R379-M Black/ Silver
[mobo] GIGABYTE GA-MA78LMT-S2
[cpu] AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz
[gpu] ASUS GeForce GT 430
[ram] G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB)
[hdd] Kingston SSDNow S100 SS100S2/16G
[total] $345.94 + shipping
[case] Rosewill R379-M Black/ Silver
This case is made from steel and is sturdy. The case comes with a 300w TFX type power supply. Replacements can be found on newegg for under $50. The power supply fan is quiet. It has hidden compartments for an internal cd and floppy drives. Inside the case everything is a snug fit. Due to the small height, all your addon cards must be low profile. The drives tray is removable making drive installations a breeze. Speaking of breeze the internal case fan is loud. The drive tray also provides a great place for routing wires to improve airflow around the motherboard. On the front face the power button illuminates blue when powered. And the hard drive activity light is amber. Neither LED is intense and does not disturb your eyes when viewing media in a dark room. There was no included mounting hardware. I was lucky to find enough screws to mount the motherboard and hard drive in my tool box.
[mobo] GIGABYTE GA-MA78LMT-S2
The GA-MA78LMT-S2 has a lot of bios options. The manual gives a brief explanation of what each menu option is. I found it pretty helpful. I chose this motherboard mostly from the newegg rating and customer feedback. I was looking for something small, with plenty of expansion later. The four SATA and one IDE port allows for hard drives to be added or even a bluray player. I disabled the onboard video. The onboard 10/100/1000 LAN card was recognized out of the box by the ubuntu installer. And when an ethernet cable is connected the mobo bios detects the connected speed of the LAN and also the cable length. Pretty neat.
[cpu] AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz
CPU and fan is quiet and easy to install. I used artic silver 3 because I had some from a few years ago. Since this is a dedicated htpc with a minimal install of linux and xbmc.. I'm not too worried about heat or overloading the CPU.
[gpu] ASUS GeForce GT 430
Low profile card with a quiet fan. I used the hdmi output to my receiver. Video worked out of the box, but it took some research and tinkering to get sound to work over hdmi. I followed these tutorials:
First install latest Nvidia drivers from repository...
http://xbmcmediacenter.com/linux-nvidia-...s-updated/
Second install latest ALSA drivers from repository...
http://xbmcmediacenter.com/alsa-drivers-...s-updated/
Third follow this tutorial to get sound over hdmi...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1668737
Aside from the sound not working out of the box, I am overall pleased with this graphics card. It plays 1080p bluray files without any issue. The card also supports 3d but I have not used it since I do not have the 3d glasses.
[hdd] Kingston SSDNow S100 SS100S2/16G
I did a little research and found a minimum install of ubuntu was less than 1gb. If you will be installing windows 7, I understand you need at least 30gb. Since I have no intention of ever installing windows 7 on any computer in my house, and I setup a media share on another pc with a larger HD, I decided to keep the HD small. I went with the 16gb ssd because the kingston read speed is rated at 230MB/s. The motherboard supports ahci which I understand enables TRIM support. It cuts down on the number of writes to the hard drive and the ubuntu 10.10 kernel recognizes ahci. Boot speeds are pretty fast, the htpc is on and sitting at xbmc home screen before my projector is done warming up.
[case] Rosewill R379-M Black/ Silver
[mobo] GIGABYTE GA-MA78LMT-S2
[cpu] AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz
[gpu] ASUS GeForce GT 430
[ram] G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB)
[hdd] Kingston SSDNow S100 SS100S2/16G
[total] $345.94 + shipping
[case] Rosewill R379-M Black/ Silver
This case is made from steel and is sturdy. The case comes with a 300w TFX type power supply. Replacements can be found on newegg for under $50. The power supply fan is quiet. It has hidden compartments for an internal cd and floppy drives. Inside the case everything is a snug fit. Due to the small height, all your addon cards must be low profile. The drives tray is removable making drive installations a breeze. Speaking of breeze the internal case fan is loud. The drive tray also provides a great place for routing wires to improve airflow around the motherboard. On the front face the power button illuminates blue when powered. And the hard drive activity light is amber. Neither LED is intense and does not disturb your eyes when viewing media in a dark room. There was no included mounting hardware. I was lucky to find enough screws to mount the motherboard and hard drive in my tool box.
[mobo] GIGABYTE GA-MA78LMT-S2
The GA-MA78LMT-S2 has a lot of bios options. The manual gives a brief explanation of what each menu option is. I found it pretty helpful. I chose this motherboard mostly from the newegg rating and customer feedback. I was looking for something small, with plenty of expansion later. The four SATA and one IDE port allows for hard drives to be added or even a bluray player. I disabled the onboard video. The onboard 10/100/1000 LAN card was recognized out of the box by the ubuntu installer. And when an ethernet cable is connected the mobo bios detects the connected speed of the LAN and also the cable length. Pretty neat.
[cpu] AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz
CPU and fan is quiet and easy to install. I used artic silver 3 because I had some from a few years ago. Since this is a dedicated htpc with a minimal install of linux and xbmc.. I'm not too worried about heat or overloading the CPU.
[gpu] ASUS GeForce GT 430
Low profile card with a quiet fan. I used the hdmi output to my receiver. Video worked out of the box, but it took some research and tinkering to get sound to work over hdmi. I followed these tutorials:
First install latest Nvidia drivers from repository...
http://xbmcmediacenter.com/linux-nvidia-...s-updated/
Second install latest ALSA drivers from repository...
http://xbmcmediacenter.com/alsa-drivers-...s-updated/
Third follow this tutorial to get sound over hdmi...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1668737
Aside from the sound not working out of the box, I am overall pleased with this graphics card. It plays 1080p bluray files without any issue. The card also supports 3d but I have not used it since I do not have the 3d glasses.
[hdd] Kingston SSDNow S100 SS100S2/16G
I did a little research and found a minimum install of ubuntu was less than 1gb. If you will be installing windows 7, I understand you need at least 30gb. Since I have no intention of ever installing windows 7 on any computer in my house, and I setup a media share on another pc with a larger HD, I decided to keep the HD small. I went with the 16gb ssd because the kingston read speed is rated at 230MB/s. The motherboard supports ahci which I understand enables TRIM support. It cuts down on the number of writes to the hard drive and the ubuntu 10.10 kernel recognizes ahci. Boot speeds are pretty fast, the htpc is on and sitting at xbmc home screen before my projector is done warming up.
