[Krispy101]

Howdy folks,

I'm looking at building an extremely cheap XBMC box for my parents, no hdd is required as it can all stream from their smb sharing server!

I was planning on getting the following;

Case:Black Mini ITX Case with 250W PSU - 20+4pin with SATA (£26.27) -- http://www.ebuyer.com/205560-black-mini-...ta-pix1001
Motherboard:Asus AT5IONT-I (£142.49) -- http://www.ebuyer.com/227343-asus-at5ion...-at5iont-i
Memory:Crucial 2GB DDR3 1066MHz (£11) -- http://www.ebuyer.com/159916-crucial-2gb...5664bc1067
Remote:Emprex MCE (£15) -- No longer available from ebuyer, but plenty for £15 on Ebay buy it now!

Grand total: £194.76

How do you think this will fare with what they need it for, would I be able to build it for any cheaper at all? Or would performance be a tad sluggish?

Thanks, in anticipation,
Kris

[dangermoose]

Very similar to my machine actually - I have the older version of the motherboard and 4GB, a similar case and the same remote! I also swapped out the PSU as it blew after about a year - but I had it loaded with an SSD, Blu-Ray and 2 HDD's so your mileage may vary.
What will you be running the OS from USB? If you can push for 4GB of RAM you will probably save yourself a headache, and at another £11 shouldnt break the bank either.

It should run without any problem as mine is fine with HD content, blu-rays, 5.1 Optical sound, and running mysql, couchpotato and sickbeard in the background. Quite a remarkable little runner considering it is an atom machine.

[T800]

You could get an Intel Celeron and motherboard for £75 which would make it much cheaper:
http://www.ebuyer.com/281424-celeron-g53...x80623g530
http://www.ebuyer.com/349713-msi-h61i-e3...m=products

[Dougie Fresh]

You could get an Intel Celeron and motherboard for £75 which would make it much cheaper:
http://www.ebuyer.com/281424-celeron-g53...x80623g530
http://www.ebuyer.com/349713-msi-h61i-e3...m=products

+1.

This is my favorite H61 mini-ITX HTPC motherboard because it does not blink the power LED in S3 sleep (and I've found it to be very reliable):
http://www.ebuyer.com/288743-gigabyte-ga...-h61n-usb3

This is my least favorite, bane of my existence:
http://www.ebuyer.com/386198-asrock-h67m...x-h67m-itx

[Krispy101]

Would the onboard graphics on the http://www.ebuyer.com/349713-msi-h61i-e3...m=products be fine for HD streaming?