[Morgan314]

Hello All,
I'm looking to make my first HTPC running XBMC. I'm looking at spending around £150 all in. I want to be able to stream full HD media from my NAS.
The spec I'm currently looking at is:

Asrock E350M1 E350 Mini-ITX Motherboard
4gb Ram - Unsure of frequencies etc, please suggest
Mini-ITX case, currently looking at Cooler Master Elite 120 , what's recommended?
Looking to run XBMC off a live usb drive, please advise on whether a cheap internal drive is preferable.
Also wondering about recommended PSU, many cases come with one.

I would also like to be able to access UK Catch Up TV such as iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD etc. Is this possible through XBMC or would I be better off installing XBMC on top of Ubuntu and running Catch Up TV via Chrome?

Any help is much appreciated!
-morgan314

[hilljd00]

I would suggest a SSD drive over a USB drive and a picoPSU

[Morgan314]

Okay thanks, any particular case recommendations? Also do these specs look okay for 1080 playback?

[Dougie Fresh]

There is better GPU support on Linux for Intel vs. AMD. Look at this board: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-GA-C847...B00AM62BOU

There is a lot of talk here about the Celeron 847 motherboards.

You might want to check out OpenELEC as well.

You can get away with a pretty small case too like any of these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Akasa-Crypto-Min...004BDXG76/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Powercool-Q5-Min...B008XI7FB8
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Powercool-Q6-Min...B008XI7FJA

You don't say if you need an optical drive?

[Skank]

Followmode,
That mobo looks so great

[Morgan314]

Thanks for all the replies, I'm building up a much better picture of what I need. I've done some research into AMD vs Intel and agree with you, that motherboard/CPU combo looks good. I have however found this for £60 - http://m.ebuyer.com/407427 any thoughts?
As for optical drive, since they are only £10-£20 yes if only to complete the functionality with a case with slot. Blu-ray isn't needed. What suggestions for RAM do you guys have, I'm thinking 4gb should be sufficient.

Also I have been considering running windows 7 with XBMC on top, allowing me to access catch up tv etc through the windows interface. Does this change any reccomendations and is this recommended?

[Skank]

Why Biostar NM70I-847 over ASRock E350M1 if you are going to chose for windows?

I would prefer the asrock, but is it truly a no go with openelec?

Planning to get a cheap build also
With no optical drive and minimum ram etc
No ssd either, so i think openelec is the way to go then? ->then better get an intel?

[Morgan314]

Or this motherboard & cpu combo? http://www.pcworldbusiness.co.uk/catalog...b4d7bce231

[Dougie Fresh]

The fan on the Biostar motherboard is noisy but it can be replaced. I used a Scythe Mini-Kaze and it worked much better. At the time I test them, only the Biostar was available but toay I would get the Gigabyte board. It's been reported here the fan is much quieter than the others.

There is a long thread here that I started with lots of detail around the Celeron 847 motherboard, testing with Windows, OpenELEC, etc.

See: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=143433

[nickr]

Well the competition between Intel and ATI pales into insignificance when you compare EITHER of them to nVidia.

[Dougie Fresh]

Why Biostar NM70I-847 over ASRock E350M1 if you are going to chose for windows?

I would prefer the asrock, but is it truly a no go with openelec?

Planning to get a cheap build also
With no optical drive and minimum ram etc
No ssd either, so i think openelec is the way to go then? ->then better get an intel?

At the same price point, the Celeron 847 has a much more powerful CPU allowing the playback of Netflix in Windows. Netflix uses Silverlight for playback and still doesn't support GPU acceleration. The CPU on the E-350 cannot render HD in software.

With OpenELEC, E-350 is fine except there is no HD audio bitstreaming support because of the lack of good drivers. With the Celeron 847, there is support for HD audio bitstreaming since the HD2000 GPU is well supported in Linux.

At this price point and form-factor, Nvidia really isn't an option unless you want to spend a bit more on something like this barebones or go big and add in an Nvidia dedicated GPU. The real advantages for HTPC though are not what they used to be compared to Intel these days.

[Skank]

Why Biostar NM70I-847 over ASRock E350M1 if you are going to chose for windows?

I would prefer the asrock, but is it truly a no go with openelec?

Planning to get a cheap build also
With no optical drive and minimum ram etc
No ssd either, so i think openelec is the way to go then? ->then better get an intel?

At the same price point, the Celeron 847 has a much more powerful CPU allowing the playback of Netflix in Windows. Netflix uses Silverlight for playback and still doesn't support GPU acceleration. The CPU on the E-350 cannot render HD in software.

With OpenELEC, E-350 is fine except there is no HD audio bitstreaming support because of the lack of good drivers. With the Celeron 847, there is support for HD audio bitstreaming since the HD2000 GPU is well supported in Linux.

At this price point and form-factor, Nvidia really isn't an option unless you want to spend a bit more on something like this barebones or go big and add in an Nvidia dedicated GPU. The real advantages for HTPC though are not what they used to be compared to Intel these days.

So what would you get for 100 euro?
The biostar?
Is it right if i say i dont need a SSD if im planning to use openelec (on usb stick)

[Dougie Fresh]

So what would you get for 100 euro?
The biostar?
Is it right if i say i dont need a SSD if im planning to use openelec (on usb stick)

If you want to post a link (or two) to the places you plan to shop online we can take a look.

OpenELEC runs off a USB stick, yes.

[Skank]

cool! thx mate

http://azerty.nl/

[Skank]

I'm waiting