2014-02-08, 02:14
Hi all! This is my first post however I have been lurking on the forum for many moons. I greatly appreciate everyone's insight. I have learned so much. We have adopted XBMC in our entire house hold. Now that my entire family recognizes the value of XBMC we are ready to take things to the next level!
I am sure forum junkies are tired of these types of posts so I will ask for your forgiveness in advance!
I've referenced the wiki and stickies often but still need a push. There are so many choices it can be overwhelming!
I would like some feedback on a new build. First and foremost let me tell you what my setup looks like now. I have outfitted our main living room and 3 bedrooms with XBMC on aging hardware. I am a IT guy by trade some I just used some older computers my employer provided at no cost. I have a NAS (Synology) with 8 TB of storage. It currently hosts the XBMC mySQL database and also some other services that integrate with XBMC.
I would consider the build I am working on currently for the main living room as the "master" XBMC" host as it runs some extra services on it that the bedroom builds don't. I don't care what the investment is however I tend to hold on to what I do build for quite awhile. With that said I typically overbuild things a bit. I do run everything on top of Windows. I find it has the least amount of limitations and it is what I am most comfortable with, my time is also limited!
I don't want to ever be in a position where my hardware is a limitation. Or at least a limitation in the next 3-4 years.
Below is what I have put together so far.
Motherboard = ASRock Z87E-ITX
CPU = Intel Core i3-4330 Haswell 4600 HD Graphics
Memory = 8 GB DDR3 1600 Crucial Ballistix Sport (Low Profile)
Hard Drive = Plextor M5M PX-128M5M mSATA 128GB
PSU = SILVERSTONE ST55F-G 550W w/ PP05-E Short cable kit
Optical Drive = Blueray (standard or slim pending case selection.) For those of you that have an optical drive how often do you use it? For those that don’t have an optical drive are you ever in a position you wish you did.?
Case (candidates) = Fractal Design Node 605, 603, or Silverstone Grandia GD04 (Other?)Is there something out there that’s better
If not, which one should I go with! I typically re-purposes cases for new builds so high end cases are fine by me.
So here is where I am torn. Do I go with a small form factor case and board that is limited to one PCI-E slot?
I would like to game on it and have the option to watch and record live television. I will admit I don’t have any recent experience with capture cards and the quality of recording they produce or the functionality within XBMC. Assuming I do get a capture card would I need need another (large capacity drive to record too? Or will recording to a network share yield good results? Obviously I prefer the latter. If I am going to game and get acceptable frame rates do I need to move up to an i5 processor? I would probably use something like a GTX760 or comparable for the graphics card.
Worst case I can always change out some components down the road and use them for a bedroom HTPC. I kind of want all those boxes to be the same….
I am rambling now… Again I am looking for a very flexible build. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I am ready to buy and build!
Thanks,
J
I am sure forum junkies are tired of these types of posts so I will ask for your forgiveness in advance!
I've referenced the wiki and stickies often but still need a push. There are so many choices it can be overwhelming! I would like some feedback on a new build. First and foremost let me tell you what my setup looks like now. I have outfitted our main living room and 3 bedrooms with XBMC on aging hardware. I am a IT guy by trade some I just used some older computers my employer provided at no cost. I have a NAS (Synology) with 8 TB of storage. It currently hosts the XBMC mySQL database and also some other services that integrate with XBMC.
I would consider the build I am working on currently for the main living room as the "master" XBMC" host as it runs some extra services on it that the bedroom builds don't. I don't care what the investment is however I tend to hold on to what I do build for quite awhile. With that said I typically overbuild things a bit. I do run everything on top of Windows. I find it has the least amount of limitations and it is what I am most comfortable with, my time is also limited!
I don't want to ever be in a position where my hardware is a limitation. Or at least a limitation in the next 3-4 years.
Below is what I have put together so far.
Motherboard = ASRock Z87E-ITX
CPU = Intel Core i3-4330 Haswell 4600 HD Graphics
Memory = 8 GB DDR3 1600 Crucial Ballistix Sport (Low Profile)
Hard Drive = Plextor M5M PX-128M5M mSATA 128GB
PSU = SILVERSTONE ST55F-G 550W w/ PP05-E Short cable kit
Optical Drive = Blueray (standard or slim pending case selection.) For those of you that have an optical drive how often do you use it? For those that don’t have an optical drive are you ever in a position you wish you did.?
Case (candidates) = Fractal Design Node 605, 603, or Silverstone Grandia GD04 (Other?)Is there something out there that’s better
If not, which one should I go with! I typically re-purposes cases for new builds so high end cases are fine by me.So here is where I am torn. Do I go with a small form factor case and board that is limited to one PCI-E slot?
I would like to game on it and have the option to watch and record live television. I will admit I don’t have any recent experience with capture cards and the quality of recording they produce or the functionality within XBMC. Assuming I do get a capture card would I need need another (large capacity drive to record too? Or will recording to a network share yield good results? Obviously I prefer the latter. If I am going to game and get acceptable frame rates do I need to move up to an i5 processor? I would probably use something like a GTX760 or comparable for the graphics card.
Worst case I can always change out some components down the road and use them for a bedroom HTPC. I kind of want all those boxes to be the same….
I am rambling now… Again I am looking for a very flexible build. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I am ready to buy and build!
Thanks,
J
