HTPC build help

[DaveD]

[moderator: moved post to it's own thread]
I have to admit, the Z97-PRO is an extremely nice board. I'm in the process of picking parts for a new build, and I'll be buying the parts within a week. I already got the SSD, a Crucial MX100 512GB. I still need to get a big video storage drive, maybe a 4TB WD Red, not real sure as they also have the Green and Purple and don't know which would be the best choice. Of course, there are some major choices to be made yet, the board, RAM & CPU. I have looked at all of the MB brands, and narrowed down my choice to either the Z97-PRO or the Maximus VII Hero. If I were to select something other than these two, it would probably be the ASRock Extreme 6. Each of these two ASUS boards have their respective good points and bad points, so this choice is agonizing to me. Somehow, I'll have to decide which options mean the most for its use, which is a HTPC/gaming PC with video capture (PVR) and FTA satellite receiver. Since it will be hooked up to the 52" TV, I could use the Sonic Radar feature on the Hero, as I probably won't make much use of surround sound audio. Of course, I'll also need to pick up a quite large HTPC case to fit all of this in. In the end, this might also end up being my one and only PC, as I plan on selling the house and downsizing to an apartment (will need to face south) (I have three PCs now). So this one will need to do EVERYTHING, more than likely.


Next is the CPU. I had planned on either the I5-4690S or the I7-4790S for the 65W TDP to try to help keep it a little cooler, but then I read the article about the Quiet Mini-ITX Gamer Build Guide posted by Mike Chin, in which he stated "FYI, even though the S versions with their near-20W lower TDP looks attractive from a quiet cooling point of view, in practise, the thermal and acoustic savings is not usually notable. Our advice is to buy on price." This statement has confused me, as I never would have thought that any SPCR staffer/reviewer would claim there is basically no difference between the 84W and 65W CPUs in a quiet yet powerful build. I have searched for comparison reviews between them, but haven't found any. However, I have also considered getting a low-end I3 to get by with until desktop Broadwells come out (if they come out). The CPU cooler choice will have to wait until I make a final choice on the case. I do have my trusty Ninja which I'm using on this PC though.


As far as RAM, either 16GB PC2400 or PC2600 with XMP enabled. 16GB is overkill, but I'll probably use RAM disk, make life a little easier on the SSD. And probably there would be a negligible difference compared to PC1600 RAM, I'm not sure.


The best PC I have right now is the one I'm using right now; an Antec Solo case from EndPCNoise.com, outfitted with the AcoustiPack Ultimate Case Insulation Kit, ASUS P5N7A-VM, Core 2 Duo E7400 with the Ninja, 8 GB of RAM and a small, old Velociraptor. It has gotten where it feels very, very slow.


I wish choosing the right components was a little more cut-and-dry to me, but my anxiety level is up on this one. Feel free to weigh in, I'm not near as computer-literate as I was back in the '90s and mid-2000s. I'm now so far behind the times that even the different types of PCIE slots have me confused. I should have paid close attention when that technology, along with all of the other, started coming onto the scene. But I was fine with what I had, and didn't give it a second thought. Now I'm playing technological catch-up.


It would be nice to wait another year to build, considering what will be coming out, but this PC is slowly giving it up. Besides being slow to the point it really bugs me, the sound died, so I figured might as well do this now.

[Cistron]

Not trying to be rude, but if you want people to read your post, paragraphs really really make things easier.

[DaveD]

Not trying to be rude, but if you want people to read your post, paragraphs really really make things easier.

Not sure what happened, but originally the post had six specific breaks designated as paragraphs. Each one had a five-space indentation. So originally, as it was posted in a previous thread, it included the six paragraphs with the five-space indentations. If you take a closer look at my original post, you can see where the paragraphs are, minus the indentations. I don't know why the indentations wouldn't follow over on a cut-and-paste, they should have.

[DaveD]

Not trying to be rude, but if you want people to read your post, paragraphs really really make things easier.

Not sure what happened, but originally the post had six specific breaks designated as paragraphs. Each one had a five-space indentation. So originally, as it was posted in a previous thread, it included the six paragraphs with the five-space indentations. If you take a closer look at my original post, you can see where the paragraphs are, minus the indentations. I don't know why the indentations wouldn't follow over on a cut-and-paste, they should have.

Alright, I get it now. Indentations don't show up, need to double-space to represent paragraphs. It's been many years since I used this board, I'll eventually figure it out. Since I hit retirement age, I've had a heck of a time remembering things, so I'll probably end up forgetting to double-space if I don't stay current on the board.

[CA_Steve]

I added line breaks for you. You can always edit your posts as needed.

Highlighting a couple of things....

CPU: The point is if you get an i5, whether it's a std part, a K part, an S or a T, if you operate them all at the same frequency, they will all default to the same core voltage and use the same amount of power. There's no special sauce involved with the S or T parts, they are just set to run at a lower base and/or turbo freq. The sweet spot for gaming, and I'm assuming you'll be gaming on your 1080p TV, is an i5. Most games tend to scale fps with clock rate, so, faster i5 is better than slower i5. YMMV with the game you play. Chances are you can google benchmarks for the games you play.

RAM: Yep, 16GB is overkill unless you want to play with a RAMdisk. Don't bother with anything faster than 1866. There's little benefit.

Mobo: You can scale down the mobo a bit unless there are specific features you need. Asus and Asrock both make decent boards. Are you planning on an ATX sized case or uATX?

Audio: If this is going to be an HTPC...is the audio going to an A/V Receiver with it's connected speakers? just the TV? Soundbar? In any of these cases, it's likely you'll be connecting via the HDMI cable. So, it's a digital path. Doesn't matter what's on the mobo for audio as you won't be using it's analog path.

Gfx card: What are the game titles you want to play? For 1080p, the low end card would be the GTX 750 Ti. The high end would be the upcoming GTX 960 (maybe January)..or GTX 970 if you are in a frenzy for setting everything at Ultra.

[DaveD]

Hi CA_Steve, Thanks for the edit.

CPU: I've been reading what I can find on them, and you are right, the I5 is the way to go. I came across this article written by Ilya Gavrichenkov at:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0

Here is a quote from the article:

"As you can see, the regular Core i5-4670, if downclocked, can act as an energy-efficient processor without any additional setting-up. By lowering its frequency multiplier you can easily get the same power consumption and heat dissipation as with the specialized Core i5-4670T and Core i5-4670S models, which means that these three processors are indistinguishable in terms of their semiconductor die design.

That said, an ordinary LGA1150 processor cannot be a full replacement for an energy-efficient one, even if handled properly. Reducing the frequency multiplier manually, of course, helps drop the power consumption to any level you want but you disable the Turbo Boost technology by doing so. There’s no automatic overclocking for a CPU with a reduced frequency multiplier. And it means that downclocking cannot deliver the same performance at single-threaded loads as you can get with S and T series models which boost their clock rate aggressively in the turbo mode.

Considering that Intel’s S and T series processors are not more expensive than their regular counterparts, there’s no reason to prefer the latter when building compact, economical and quiet computers. The standard-TDP models may only be interesting for their higher flexibility in terms of frequency and heat dissipation adjustment for specific operating conditions. This is hardly a hefty advantage, though. The problem of performance should also be taken into account, however, so now we’ll proceed to checking it out."

There are a couple of graphs on that page that represent exactly what you say about the standard, S and T CPUs.

After reading the entire article, I think my choice is the I5 4690S. The only significant difference between it and the I7 4790S is the 4790S is much quicker at zipping and unzipping files and heavy video editing. Since it's extra speed in these areas don't mean that much to me, I'll save the extra $100.00 and use it elsewhere else.

RAM: I definitely plan on using RAM disk, not for the speed, but for the longevity of the SSD, as it will significantly reduce the amount of writes to it. So I figure using RAM disk and loading up video games, I might as well get 16GB.

Here is an interesting article about RAM speed also:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory ... -ddr3.html

It is also written by Ilya Gavrichenkov, and the title speaks for itself: "What is the best memory for Haswell? From DDR3-1333 to DDR3-2933: performance scaling test"

It is a very interesting article on RAM speeds and what effect it has on performance. I'm pretty sure I recently read that if a PC does not have a K series CPU, then PC-2400 is the fastest the system will support anyway, and any RAM faster than that gets very expensive. It looks like the only area where faster RAM is a benefit is in gaming, but then again, that is one of the reasons for this build. Maybe price-vs.-performance-wise the 1866 will be the way to go. With a fairly decent gfx card, maybe even 1600 would be just fine, idk.

MOBO: This particular PC will be a Jack-of-All-Trades; HTPC/gaming PC with video capture (PVR) and FTA satellite receiver, so I plan on just one gfx card, and a video capture card and a FTA satellite receiver card, maybe even a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card, so I'll probably need a few slots, which means an ATX size MOBO. And the slot layout of the Z97-Pro fits my needs best, followed by the Maximus VII Hero, then the extreme 6, but maybe all of them would work with the cards that I'll need?

Case: I hope I can find a not-too-gawdy looking ATX HTPC case, and it will probably need a LCD screen, since it will have the FTA receiver card in it. Big enough where everything will fit and it can breathe, but not so big it looks too bad.

Audio: Thank you very much for this information! This is one area I have been a little stressed over, as I didn't know if the on-board audio was used at all with HDMI. I will be connecting with HDMI, initially through the TV, then to the A/V receiver until I upgrade the receiver. However, later on I plan on getting fairly high-end 5.1 or 7.1 gaming headphones, so I will still need fairly decent on-board audio, ALC 1150. That is the main reason I chose the Z97-PRO over the ASRock Extreme 6, is the Z97-PRO sound is rated better. Whether there would be an audible difference through headphones or Klipsch Promedia 2.1 speakers, idk but would be nice to know. But this is why I am looking at the higher-end MOBOs, is the onboard audio.

Gfx card: I will be connected to the 52" TV at 1080P via HDMI. The current game titles I use on my PS3 are the Call of Duty, Battlefield, Fallout, Far Cry and Bioshock titles. I have Hit man, but haven't played it yet, picked it up used. The ASUS Strix GeForce GTX 980 would be a nice card, but definitely can't afford that. The ASUS GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 GeForce GTX 750 Ti is $175.00 at Newegg, but maybe something a little more powerful, as I would like to turn up the eye candy a ways. Ultra settings would be great, I just can't afford a gfx card to do it.

HDD: I am considering a Western Digital, probably 4TB. Considering it will be for the media on a HTPC, I don't know whether the Red, Green or Purple would be the best choice. I plan on moving the My Documents folder, and probably others to the HDD also.

However, whatever components will go into this build I would hope to be SPCR approved, of course.

Thank you very much for your help, I definitely appreciate it.

[khaakon]

+1 on the link to xbitlabs article on CPUs. I'm happy to learn more about if clockspeed/wattage capped CPUs aren't necessarily so bad to look at when you're building a system with challenged cooling or targeting low noise cooling. All things considered - maybe wattage caps makes sense for some, and then deal with performance issuses according to that. If price is the same as std., of course. One can only then wonder if binned K CPUs will downvolt better @ std clocks, if you like to play with such.. to a very tiny advantage though.

You cant have a gaming PC whitout burning some GPU watts and cooling that to acceptable levels (even fanless cards need airflow), so thats where its best to spend the most resources and research. Nvidia's GTX 970 is out with hybrid cooling, and a much better deal than the 980. GTX 960 is expected some time early 2015 and is anticipated to be a super card for gaming @ 1080. You can get some very good cards from AMD too, but they generally produce more heat at current generations.

I like your posts, and your build looks nice - too bad you need all them extra cards and ATX board. Cases arent too easy as Silverstones are quite gawdy, i dunno if you can get Streacoms for gaming and with display, suggestion maybe Cooltek G3 ;
http://www.cooltek.de/en/powered-by-jonsbo/g3/96/g3

*edit; just saw on Cooltek page ; " A special optical highlight is the illuminated display of the G3, which says "Home Theatre PC by Jonsbo" (not programmable)."
...not programmable ?? serious?? God help them if this is the only purpose of the display... i cant believe it..
It is only 351 mm deep, which is a great bonus since external plugs and cables need space too. I remember my HTPC satellite tuner with a very unwieldy antenna cable. **edit; if you're downsizing to an apartement, you might get rid of the dish...

[DaveD]

Hi khaakon, Thanks for posting, I appreciate your comments.

When I find any information that I think others may be able to benefit from, as in the xbitlabs articles I linked to, I will always share it. I like helping others, and that's what forums are for. I'm glad you found the one about the CPUs useful.

Speaking of CPUs, in my original post I stated, "I had planned on either the I5-4690S or the I7-4790S for the 65W TDP to try to help keep it a little cooler, but then I read the article about the Quiet Mini-ITX Gamer Build Guide posted by Mike Chin, in which he stated "FYI, even though the S versions with their near-20W lower TDP looks attractive from a quiet cooling point of view, in practise, the thermal and acoustic savings is not usually notable. Our advice is to buy on price." This statement has confused me, as I never would have thought that any SPCR staffer/reviewer would claim there is basically no difference between the 84W and 65W CPUs in a quiet yet powerful build."

Well, after searching and reading more, especially paying close attention to the xbitlabs article, reading it all the way to the end, I can now see why Mike Chin made the statement that I quoted. We will never be stressing the CPU to the max, especially for any length of time. When performing normal tasks like watching videos and TV and gaming, their power usage is similar. If you go to page 7 of the article, you can see the standard and S versions are actually quite close in power usage. I still like the idea of using the S version though. At least I would feel comfortable knowing that if it was pushed hard, it will remain cool. On the other hand, if it did get too warm, it will throttle itself down. I guess to make a choice between the two, I'll have to flip a coin.

Both you and CA_Steve have talked about the GTX 960. Yes, I really like the GTX 970, but after looking into the GTX960, I think I'll wait for it, as I think you're right about it being best for a 1080P TV, and I'm sure the price will be nicer, also. For comparison, the PS3 I use now only plays games at 720P, and I find that resolution to be just fine.

I checked out the Cooltek G3. That is a really nice case, and it even has a little smaller footprint than my JVC VCR, which will go away after I get all of my VCR tapes copied. Plenty of room inside also. I can get it shipped from the UK to my house for about $190.00 U.S. The shipping cost really adds to the price, but still a pretty good price. I read what you said about the display. I would think that Cooltek would make it usable, otherwise why even have it at all?

Fortunately is all that is needed to hook up the satellite dish is a RG6 coax cable, same as regular cable TV. My dish is kind of big though at 36 inches. When I get this house sold, I hope I can find a south-facing apartment so I can set up the satellite dish. If not, maybe look at renting a smaller house with a small yard. I really don't want to own another house again. Being an old single guy, I've also thought about buying and living in a 36 to 40 foot long fifth wheel trailer. I knew a couple that lived in a 40 footer, and they liked it. As a matter o fact, I spent a week with them in that trailer, and I definitely didn't mind it at all. I would have to get rid of a lot of stuff though. It's fairly easy to get a change of scenery that way too. Just hook up and go.

If I do end up setting up the satellite system, another option is to get a stand-alone receiver. Here's about the best there is, but there are other very good ones out there also:

http://www.gofastmotorsports.com/Linkbo ... remium.htm

I could probably get by with a uATX board for the HTPC, but I don't mind the size of a case like the Cooltek G3.

Thanks for your recommendations, I appreciate it.

[CA_Steve]

Think of the S parts like having a governor on a car. You can only go so fast. Up until that point, it acts like the car without a governor. Doesn't use more or less power until you hit that point where it doesn't go any faster. The upside is, you limit the power used. Downside is if you need the extra speed....like in a game or if you are transcoding video.

Here's a review on the case.