Poofyhairguy's HTPC Recommendation Thread

Subscribed, great info here

Here is a motherboard that I'm eagerly waiting to see how well it will do - http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product...id=3681#ov One of the new AMD Fusion boards. I want to build a G2 type setup and I was thinking that this new board would be idea (if not a bit overkill). Thoughts?

Another big update. Added tones of Newegg links, two sub-groups (with AppleTVs) and some refining. If anyone thinks I am off on anything (or I am missing a key point) please challenge me on it so this can be a good resource for people.

What about AMD Zacate platform? One board solution.
Asrock e350- 110+shipping
Cheap Mini-itx case w/psu - 50
2 GB RAM - 20

Nice front end that bitstreams hd audio for under 200 bucks. Assuming of course, you have windows.

Great thread. One question though: what's wrong with Samsung HDDs?

poofyhairguy,

Thanks for posting this thread! I think I fit somewhere in between group 2 and 2.5 but I have a few questions...

- It would be awesome to have the streaming capability (netflix) so I don't have to swap over to my blue-ray player and use its horrible netflix widget. But is the full functionality there? (I read your post about hardware accelerated flash being experimental.)

- Is it your recommendation to use the "Live" installation on these boxes or should you do a custom linux build with xbmc on top? (Sorry if this is a newb question, just wondering if there is a huge advantage to a manual installation over the Live build)

- The 2 pre-built options in Group 2 (shuttle and zotac) appear to be slightly different. Shuttle is a barebone while the zotac comes with a hard drive and RAM. Do you have disk/ram recommendations for the shuttle barebone?

- Is the hard drive a factor if you have a file server on the home network? (windows or linux) I'm just unfamiliar with what other features a local disk brings to xbmc outside of media storage.

- If I'm reading correctly, the Zotac ND01 ($249) is recommended for Group 2 people. The Zotac ND22 ($269) is recommended for group 2.5 people but you still need to buy RAM ($28 for 2GB) & Storage ($7 for 4GB SDHC). This puts the delta around $55 correct? (I'm assuming the hard disk is not a factor.. set me straight if that's incorrect )

Thanks again for putting together this awesome guide!

~Brian

**EDIT: In my last bullet I assumed Live can be installed to an SDHC card. If this is not true, replace my storage link with an $8 USB stick.
**EDIT #2: Math fail in my last bullet... woops

XxTRAINEExX Wrote:- It would be awesome to have the streaming capability (netflix) so I don't have to swap over to my blue-ray player and use its horrible netflix widget. But is the full functionality there?

Only in Windows, and even then I would still recommend using the Blu Ray player instead.

Quote:- Is it your recommendation to use the "Live" installation on these boxes or should you do a custom linux build with xbmc on top? (Sorry if this is a newb question, just wondering if there is a huge advantage to a manual installation over the Live build)

I use Live for everything. The great XBMC developers know their stuff, it is much easier to expand XBMC Live if you need something more.

Quote:- The 2 pre-built options in Group 2 (shuttle and zotac) appear to be slightly different. Shuttle is a barebone while the zotac comes with a hard drive and RAM. Do you have disk/ram recommendations for the shuttle barebone?

Shuttle is fanless, therefore silent. That is its upside. As far as RAM, I like Corsair or Kingston best, as far as an OS drive this SSD (minimum):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product

Quote:- Is the hard drive a factor if you have a file server on the home network? (windows or linux) I'm just unfamiliar with what other features a local disk brings to xbmc outside of media storage.

That is all really, but some people lack a NAS.

Quote:- If I'm reading correctly, the Zotac ND01 ($249) is recommended for Group 2 people. The Zotac ND22 ($269) is recommended for group 2.5 people but you still need to buy RAM ($28 for 2GB) & Storage ($7 for 4GB SDHC). This puts the delta around $55 correct? (I'm assuming the hard disk is not a factor.. set me straight if that's incorrect )

Yeah. Its a 2x bump in CPU power, but that is only needed in certain cases like Netflix.

Quote:Thanks again for putting together this awesome guide!

You are welcome.

Quote:**EDIT: In my last bullet I assumed Live can be installed to an SDHC card. If this is not true, replace my storage link with an $8 USB stick.

I recommend putting Live on a SSD like the one linked above. The OS boots very slow off pen drives and CF cards.

spartan711 Wrote:What about AMD Zacate platform? One board solution.

I will add it eventually, as soon as I know for certain what Group (I am thinking 2.5).

xecutionx Wrote:Great thread. One question though: what's wrong with Samsung HDDs?

The main problem that is have is they report incorrect temps. That alone makes me mad. Also they have lower performance in my tests than other comparable drives. Finally (big deal to me) they don't work good with Unraid.

poofyhairguy, then, what are the best unRAID drives to use? Hitachi? and why?