HTPC Buyer's Guide

Feronix

New member
This time we're taking a look at a a £300 ish build guide for a small HTPC. Being just 61.5mm tall, 228mm wide and 187mm deep the entire PC will take up a volume of only 2.62 Liters.

The tiny computer will look good in a living room, and as a bonus this PC is 100% silent, although you can swap out the SSD for a 2.5" hard drive if you want more storage. The motherboard supports mSata SSDs, so you can use both, but that would've made this build quite expensive for an HTPC so I've decided not to include that into the buyer's guide.



To start this build off we're picking up an Akasa Euler case. Costing £70 on its own it's not cheap, but it does come with its own external 120 Watt power brick and also provides the CPU cooling for processors up to 35 Watts TDP.

The case is based on the Intel Thin-Mini ITX form factor, has no front I/O except for the 'On' button and is made from aluminium, making it act as a giant passive CPU cooler.

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Alternatives:
Silverstone PT 13: Is a similar form factor case, but doesn't act as a CPU cooler and doesn't come with its own power supply. It does provide you with two USB 2 ports on the front though.
Silverstone Argon SST-AR04: CPU cooler that fits in the PT13 case, where the Intel stock cooler doesn't. This option won't be as cheap and quiet as the Akasa option, but as a bonus you can put CPUs with a higher TDP in there, such as an i5 or i7.
Seasonic Power Adapter 120Watt: You'll need this to power the system by plugging it in to the AC/DC port on the back of the motherboard.

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For the motherboard, I'd have originally chosen the Asus H81T, being one of the cheapest Thin-MiniITX boards around while still offering pretty much the same features as the rest. As I couldn't seem to find one in UK webshops though, I have gone with the Gigabyte H81TN.

This 25mm high motherboard fits into the case perfectly and offers us mSata, two powered Sata III ports, mini PCI-Express and two USB 3 ports at the back. It has HDMI and Display Ports to hook it up to your TV.

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Alternatives:
Asus H81T: A very similar board, since the Thin Mini ITX form factor is standardized by Intel. Even the sockets are all in the exact same place.
Gigabyte GA-B85TN: Also a very similar board, but offers four USB 3 ports on the back.

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CPU wise there are a lot of options, as long as the CPU doesn't exceed the 35Watt TDP limit that our case brings onto us. This means you've got pretty much the entire range of Celerons and Pentiums to choose from, but I went one up and shot for an i3, offering us a hyperthreaded dual core experience with Intel HD4000 series graphics.

The Intel Core i3 4160T seemed a perfect fit. It has two Hyperthreaded cores at 3.1GHz and Intel HD4400 Graphics on-board. With a rated TDP of exactly 35 Watts it suits the build perfect, and because 35W is what the manufacturer recommends, we can feel comfortable putting this into our passively cooler HTPC.

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Alternatives:
Intel Celeron G1840T: If you want the cheapest possible HTPC this CPU is for you. It'll be alright with movies in Full HD but that's about it. In the end that's the main purpose for an HTPC in my opinion, but it won't offer much of an all-round PC experience.
Intel Pentium G3250T: This CPU sits between the Celeron and the i3 and is actually a very, very nice fit for this system. It does however have simpler 'Intel HD Graphics' on-board and if you want to run slightly more demanding applications it won't be the quickest.
Intel Core i7-4785T: This quad core CPU at 2.2GHz (3.2GHz Boost) and with Intel HD 4600 Graphics on-board is complete overkill for an HTPC, but if you decide to use it as your main computer and you also want to run software like PhotoShop it's a good shot at 35 Watts rated TDP.

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Considering our motherboard uses DDR3 SoDIMM memory, we'll need some 'laptop' style memory to go with it. 4GBs is plenty for an HTPC and keeps the cost down a little. I went with 2x2GB Corsair DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM at 1333MHz, with timings of 9-9-9-24 at 1.5v.

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The motherboard can support up to 16GB RAM, so go wild if you want to ;)

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Storage in this build is a little more complicated than normally. You only have one 2.5" HDD spot available so you'll have to choose between an SSD for speed, or an HDD for storage. Due to the mSata slot you CAN have both, but it will be a little more expensive.

The options are as follow, although you can change the volume amounts as you wish:
- 120GB mSata/ 2.5" SSD: Cheap, fast, little storage, 100% silent
- 500GB HDD: Cheap, slow, good bit of storage, noisy
- 120GB mSata SSD + 500GB 2.5" HDD: Expensive, fast, nice storage options, noisy.

You can always get the 120GB mSata drive for now and add a 2.5" storage drive later. You can also use the USB 3 ports on the rear to hook up an external hard drive although this may look messy.

In this case, I have decided to keep the cost down and still make the HTPC nice and fast by getting a single 120GB 2.5" SSD. Chances are the HTPC will be hooked up to your home network, and you can either stream movies stored on your main PC, or maybe you even have a NAS at your house.

For a cheap but fast and reliable SSD I've gone with the 128GB SanDisk Pulse SSD.

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Alternatives:
Crucial MX100 128GB: This SSD is a little more expensive, but also one of the most reliable and one of the fastest SSDs around.
Crucial M550 mSATA 128GB: A very fast and reliable SSD that goes into an mSata slot, so you can still keep your 2.5" drive bay free for further upgrades.
Hitachi HTS725050A7E630 Travelstar 500GB: A mechanical harddrive that will make noise and be slower as opposed to SSDs, but this 500GB 2.5" drives still spins at 7200RPM so it provides relatively nice speeds and offers plenty storage, although it won't be quiet.

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Total cost: : £314.47

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Optional Components

- Crucial M550 mSata SSD. As the motherboard supports mSata, you can use a small, yet fast and reliable SSD like this one to keep your 2.5" drive bay free for a mechanical hard drive that offers more storage. This SSD can be bought as 64GB, 128GB, 256GB or 512GB flavours.

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- Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 Plus Bluetooth. This little Mini PCI-E card fits in the empty slot on nearly any Thin Mini ITX motherboard and for not even £20 it will supply us with both WiFi and Bluetooth on our HTPC.

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- Asus SBC-06D2X-U. This external Blu-Ray player, barely costing 50 quid will give you the opportunity to play Blu-Ray movies on your HTPC, even when it's too small to build one in. Due it's stylish looks, it won't look half bad next to the TV either.

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- Windows 8.1. Windows 8 and 8.1 are optimized for touchpad interfaces, which is nice for a living room PC, especially if you have a look in the accessories section. The Metro interface won't appeal to everyone, but the big tiles are easy to read and distinguish from all the way back on your comfortable couch.
The popular operating system also provides lots of free applications that may appeal to HTPC users, such as VLC Media Player, Spotify and Netflix.

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Accessories

- Microsoft All In One keyboard. With this small, chiclet style keyboard with touchpad for gestures, you can sit comfortably on your couch and control the PC. The integrated function keys and touchpad work really well to control Windows 8(.1), such as operating the sound volume, or even opening media applications. As a bonus it is 'waterproof', so no worries if you spill your drink on it.

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- WD My Passport Ultra 1TB. This external 2.5" 5400RPM is not very quick, but it can carry a lot of music and movies! It comes with password protection and a high-speed USB 3 interface so you can watch movies on your HTPC without even having to copy them off the drive. As you a bonus you can plug and play it into any computer that you own, so it can be used for easy files transfer. Ah, you guys know how external HDDs work ;)

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- Transcend RDF5 USB3.0 Card Reader. Transcend are well known in the SD card world, but they also offer this very convenient tool. You plug the USB 3.0 stick in any USB port, and from there it acts as an SD card reader for normal-sized SD cards, as well as Micro SD cards.

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Tips & Tricks

Install Windows from a USB
This is much faster than from any disc. You can find a guide here.

Start8
Start8 will add the regular old start button and -menu from Windows 7 back into Windows 8 and 8.1. You'll also be able to boot straight to the desktop, completely avoiding the entire Metro interface. Download here

Ninite.com
www.ninite.com lets you select all the (free) software that you like to install and download it as a single installer package. This way you'll only have to download and install one file, rather than many seperate ones.

SSD maintenance
Please have a look at our thread on SSD maintenance by member Wraithguard:
http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=67884

Building with the Intel Thin Mini ITX form factor
A convenient build 'guide' can be found here.
It's not very professional but it gives a clear overview of the steps to take and how exactly the Akasa Euler case works.
 
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Love it dude! Also really do like Gigabytes mini boards hate the colours but seeing as it's a HTPC it matters not. This would be awesome as a steambox streamer too.
 
Love it dude! Also really do like Gigabytes mini boards hate the colours but seeing as it's a HTPC it matters not. This would be awesome as a steambox streamer too.

Thanks mate! :)

Yeah I'm a huge fan of the Thin Mini ITX platform ever since it was released in the Z77 days. Have always wanted to do a build with one, preferably an AIO computer. Speaking of which, I'd love to do a buyer's guide for that as well but can't seem to find any of the barebones with included screens in UK shops?
 
Good write up there mate, I been thinking along the lines of something like this for a while so as can change out my old lappy for a purpose built system in as little a case as I can find and afford.

I was thinking of going along the lines of an Atom CPU and board, but seeing that mobo, it has certainly made me think about going either i3 or Pentium Anniversary edition CPU in it instead.
 
Nice write up mate, but have you cinsidered AMD Kabini for a HTPC, as they do not require much power really.

I'm working on a Steam Streaming PC ATM, should make a good project log and a few articles.
 
Nice write up mate, but have you cinsidered AMD Kabini for a HTPC, as they do not require much power really.

I'm working on a Steam Streaming PC ATM, should make a good project log and a few articles.

I have! Take a look at the Steambox guide here ;)

The reason I went with Intel here is because of the energy efficiency (thus low noise and passive cooling), and because I was able to make the build much, much smaller with the Thin Mini ITX form factor that doesn't exist for AMD, and smaller is better for a living room HTPC, I'd say.

I'll follow that build log ;)
 
I have! Take a look at the Steambox guide here ;)

The reason I went with Intel here is because of the energy efficiency (thus low noise and passive cooling), and because I was able to make the build much, much smaller with the Thin Mini ITX form factor that doesn't exist for AMD, and smaller is better for a living room HTPC, I'd say.

I'll follow that build log ;)

There are plenty of Mini- ITX boards for Kabini, all of which are £25-30.

Also it has a 15W TDP, which is pretty darn low.

That aside, the systems you have done so far are great dude.
 
There are plenty of Mini- ITX boards for Kabini, all of which are £25-30.

Also it has a 15W TDP, which is pretty darn low.

That aside, the systems you have done so far are great dude.

Not thin mini ITX (25mm high) though, and you'll need an internal PSU too so they'll end up a bit bigger except for one Asrock board that I know of. But I might do a cheap as fook buyer's guide some time!

Thanks mate :)
 
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