[Bytefire]

Hey Guys,

I was using XBMCbuntu happily on my Zotac ZBOX HD-ND22 since it was released (except a few crashes which i was blaming on the nvidia driver)
But the zbox is now broken (during the warranty phase) and the vendor can not replace it => therefore i got my money back and can buy a new HTPC.
I was reading all morning through posts and blogs to find out which pc would fit my needs - but i am not sure what to buy.

My expectations:
The HTPC will only be used to run XBMCbuntu
it will only stream MKV h.264/x.264 videos
smooth playback of the videos of course and (reasonable) fast XBMC performance itself
i already have a 16GB SSD for the OS and 2GB of RAM
an ATI/AMD or Intel graphic controller since it is recommended for XBMC, right?

What i already discovered:
* Zotac ZBOX ID82 seems pretty good but very expensive, costs about 167€ more than what i payed for my last ZBOX.
* Zotac ZBOX ID81 has a slightly better CPU performance that my last box but what about the graphic card? it only says "Intel® HD Graphics" - will that be sufficient for full HD playback?

i would prefer a barebone pc where i can use my old RAM and SSD, but i am open for suggestions

[malibu327]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dGeW
This is what I did. I dont know anything about the Zotac pc's. Good luck.

[Bytefire]

thanks for the list.
building a custom htpc is very tempting when i look at the performance of a system with a AMD A6-3500 CPU.

but how is this CPU supported under XBMCbuntu? i heard a lot of people complaining about this CPU with Ubuntu.

[Bytefire]

after a few weeks of thinking about it, i came up with building a custom HTPC with these components, using i3 Ivy Bridge:
http://geizhals.at/eu/?cat=WL-265208

i already have a SSD from my last HTPC.
what do you guys think about this setup?

[FernetMenta]

NVidia graphics is first choice on Linux, e.g. GT520M. CPU is not mission critical, D2700 or D2550 is more than required.

[Bytefire]

ok but will a D2700 also be able to handle heavy skins smoothly?
a Zotac ZBOX ID80 would be exactly what you just described, i am just worried about the poor CPU performance (Youtube HD?)

[FernetMenta]

GUI rendering is a GPU thing, not CPU.

[haf-blade]

I think you machine is really good as htpc. Would also buy the same if I would buy one now.
But I'm not sure if you need a 400 watt power supply.

I heard that 200watt are enough together with some itx mainboard etc. when you only want to use it as client.

[Bytefire]

i was choosing this power supply because it is known to be very silent. but you are right, a smaller PSU would be smarter, just did not came across a good one with less power so far. any ideas?

@FernetMenta
OK, so you think heavy skins and youtube HD should run smoothly?

[FernetMenta]

AFAIK you need Adobe Flash player for youtube, right? The only hw acceleration API Flash supports on Linux is NVidia vdpau. It does not support (and won't ever support) AMD's XvBA or Intel's VAAPI.
Without the chance to offloading decoding to GPU you need desktop CPU power. According to several articles it should work fine with vdpau, though I have never tried myself.

As said earlier, GUI rendering is a GPU thing. Current XBMCbuntu release is based on Oneiric and the packaged Intel graphics driver does not even satisfy XBMC system requirements. You would need to install a newer driver in order to have more fun with Intel graphics.

[Bytefire]

ok i see, but i am a bit confused now, why does it say Nvidia is not recommended on the Supported Hardware Wiki? http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Sup...ware#Linux
"ATI/AMD, Intel (recommended)[1], or NVIDIA (not recommended)[2]..."

and on this wiki page (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBM...ecific_FAQ) it says:
"For Linux, the best supported graphics chips are Intel GMA" ?

I am fine with updating the display driver as long as it works properly afterwards?

[FernetMenta]

Thanks for pointing me to this info. I have undone the change of user Zunildazabalays which was complete nonsense.

[Bytefire]

i guess i will try my luck with the onboard graphics of the Ivy Bridge. Apparently Ubuntu works properly (according to here and here) with the opensource intel drivers - i hope XBMC is also happy about it.
worst case, i upgrade my system with a nvidia GT 520 for about € 33 or switch to Windows.
but i guess the powerfull ivy bridge could also compensate the lack of hardware acceleration if necessary ...

i will keep you updated on how it went

[Bytefire]

hey everyone,

these where the parts i bought http://geizhals.at/?cat=WL-265208 + 16GB Kingston SSD
i already assembled the htpc and tested it: i am very pleased with the result.
the htpc is silent (after configuring the fan in the BIOS) and very fast, i'd say it takes about 15seconds to boot XBMCbuntu. everything runs smooth (mkv/youtube 1080p, AEON MQ,...).

I can absolutley recommend the setting and for the performance i think the price is very good.

Thank you for your help!