We detail how to choose the right parts for
a perfect media PC, and then teaches you how to put it together
There's more to getting a media PC just
right than buying normal desktop components and putting them in a snazzy hi-fi
look-alike case. Special attention needs to be paid to almost every component
if you are to achieve HTPC (Home Theatre PC) nirvana - performance, silence and
energy efficiency.
In this piece we will be looking at a
variety of different specifications to suit various budgets before launching
into a step-by-step building guide. Different people use their HTPCs for
different purposes, so the right system for you might be very different to one
that suits someone else! Some people will want their HTPC to double up as a
gaming machine or general-purpose workstation, for example, which will require
a much more powerful specification than one that only needs to stream video
over your network.
Regardless of budget, we recommend
solid-state drives for HTPCs. They provide superb performance compared to a
hard disk, and also operate without noise, thereby eliminating a major source
of annoyance. Windows 7 is continually carrying out indexing and housekeeping
duties on the main C: drive, so by switching to a solid-state you won't hear a
peep, no matter what Windows is doing. If you're looking to store lots of
multimedia content on your HTPC, you'll also have to fit in a secondary drive
as well, but this can be set to power down when idle, only spinning up when you
need to access the data stored on it.
Remember to keep a decent chunk of your
budget available for a high-quality power supply and CPU cooler. It's critical
to get these two components just right in HTPCs. BeQuiet makes some of the
quietest power supplies available, and with a 530W variant available for less
than $63, they don't necessarily cost the earth. Unless you have a very
powerful discrete video card to feed, a 530W power supply will be more than
enough grunt for even the most powerful of systems.
Choosing a video card is one of the
trickiest choices to make, as there's a bewildering array of choices. If you
only want a discrete card for the enhancement of video playback, we strongly
recommend the Radeon 6570. It's the least expensive card to provide the grunt
needed for AMD's full range of video quality enhancement features, and comes in
low-profile and passively cooled variants. If you need to add some gaming
performance, you'll need something faster. This will necessitate a full-sized
video card and will therefore restrict you to larger HTPC cases like the
Silverstone Grandia series. The smaller low-profile cards simply don't provide
enough performance to allow you to enjoy games as the developers intended. Some
of our favourite quiet gaming cards come from Gainward, which offers a special
'Phantom' edition of its GTX 560 Ti, 570, 580 and 680 cards. Despite being
overclocked and therefore offering extremely good performance, they have a
special low-noise cooler on them, which uses large heat-pipes and fins to
reduce the amount of work the fans have to do. They don't come cheap, however,
with even 560 Ti cards costing the best part of $320! Another option is to buy
a normal variety of video card and then fit it with your own after-market
cooler. Arctic Cooling makes a great range of coolers to accommodate a variety
of different powerful cards; just make sure that the cooler won't make your video
card exceed the maximum dimensions of your case! If you have an existing video
card that you want to use in an HTPC and the warranty has expired, you can
modify a video card's stock cooler relatively easily to make it quieter. Remove
the fan section, expose the coolers fins and attach a 120mm case fan using
cable ties. We successfully modified a Radeon 4850 to be almost noiseless using
a standard 120mm fan and two cable ties.
Most HTPC systems don't need a huge amount
of memory, but with the price of RAM being so cheap at the moment, it doesn't
make a lot of sense to skimp here. 4GB for a basic machine or 8GB for something
more powerful will be ideal, and means your HTPC can comfortably perform other
tasks in the background like downloading torrents while you play your media.
The following four systems are examples of
different kinds of HTPC. Hopefully you will find them inspirational when
choosing your own media PC specification!
