Mini ITX build, media centre, steam streaming experiment

[PANiC]

Had some interest on TS for my new little build, sry if this is a long post but i added some pictures let me know any questions.

 

Wanted to update my core2 intel hd4000 gfx based ITX HTPC for a while, the old HD4000 just creaks occasionally with some bluray rips. other than that, the hdd access noise just drives me nuts, it seems to be amplified by the case 100x, and it was running vista which i wanted to move from also. also upgraded from wireless to ethernet after getting annoyed and smashing my expensive keyboard due to wifi issues (still can't find one of the batteries).

 

The initial plan was to move off windows completely and use http://openelec.tv/instead, which is effectively a standalone version of KODI (formally XBMC) free, fast, only needed the PC as a fancy HTPC really. With a NAS in place all I really needed was something that could process high bitrate films tbh, even a WD streamer would probably be ok.

 

Then Steam go and introduce Home Streaming which changes things a little. So now I'm thinking this could be pretty good as long as I'm not building another expensive powerful PC. So what kind of minimum spec can I get away with? - can I just say here that the spec and price could be lower but i'm a sucker for things like ssd, cases and some extra ram doesn't hurt either :]

 

I was very close to getting an Intel NUC http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-comparison.html but i think it might have been a little more money and i'd read good and bad accounts of their performance for steam streaming.

 

So i went for the self build route instead which is more fun.

 

Regarding the OS, I ended up with Win7 because I have an unused key, I almost gave SteamOS a shot but I know it would take some effort to get KODI on there as well, and this is predominantly a HTPC at the end of the day.

 

Parts list:

 

 

MOBO: ASUS AM1i-A ~£28

there is a REALLY limited number of ITX boards that can take an AM1 cpu but they are all less than £30, never paid so little for a mobo. no complaints really, only thing that would be useful would be Bluetooth but that can be solved for £1.10 delivered . this would mean i could add a cheap bt mic for TS in the future maybe. no probs using current kit in the mean time.

 

click for massive pic:

 

CPU: AMD Athlon 5350 (socket AM1) ~£45

To cut the cost and hearing good things about their APUs I went with AMD. Using an AM1 Kabini cpu was the gamble of the setup because i'm relying on a relatively slow and cheap CPU to run the pc and also process the gfx. alternatively i was looking at the AMD A10 (or an Intel i3) as a decent step up from the AM1 kabini chips but then the price had hit £100 and would need a more expensive FM2 socket mobo, so for the first time ever, i've backed up and gone with the lower spec. iirc i think the 5350 was the cheapest quad core AM1, well worth the few extra quid over the dual core version. stock cooler will be fine.

 

 

 

GFX: not required because of the APU process choice

just for info, my old gfx card ATi 7850 can fit on the board and in the case. just because the mobo has a 4x pcie slot, doesnt mean you cant fit in a full size card :] in the interest of being low power and not wanting to over heat the whole system, this pc will not be getting my old gfx card :]

 

RAM: Kingston HyperX 8GB (2x4) ~£65

suppose i could have gone with 4GB to save £10, but hardly worth it.

 

 

 

SDD: Samsung 120GB 840 EVO ~£60

decent, cheap, fast, silent. alternative could be 500GB hard drive to save £25 but i'd have an ssd anyday, instant boot, no noise or heat which is a potential issue for an ITX case.

 

 

Case inc. PSU: Silverstone Sugo SG05 (USB3 version) with 300W psu ~£65

Probably could have saved a lot on the case then bought a suitable psu but would have ended up with the same price. it has a mini psu which helps with space but can take a full size atx psu. no issues with space, can add a laptop/slim bluray drive or a second hard drive. 300w is way more than I need for this but that's what you get in the box. the 120mm fan at the front is a nice feature, there is little heat being generated and this quiet 120 mike mike will keep things chill. you could even stick in a bright blue one in there to annoy yourself and everyone in the room when watching a film or something.

 

 

 

arrrrgg best i can do with the wires :/

 

 

i/o panel

 

 

 

random objects for size comparison

 

 

 

If i was on a budget then i'd stick with 4gb ram, and reused old hard drive, case and power supply which would make the build about £120 with little performance difference i would imagine.

 

 

SO DOES IT STREAM?! but first... WTF IS STEAM HOME STREAMING?!

 

Official infos: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3629-RIAV-1617

 

Basically you can run your games from a powerful pc and stream it to a potentially much lower spec machine elsewhere on your network. so in my case i could run any game from my steam library on my tv in the lounge using a small, quiet, relatively cheap machine.

 

Install the steam client on another PC, log in and go to your library, instead of the Play button you get something like below (pic from google images but same as i had):

 

 

The game then starts running on your main pc and feeds the display back to your other pc. there is really very minimal control lag, i played with screens side by side and tbh there is probably more display lag caused by image processing in your TV than control lag going through your network, have game mode on your TV? then use it.

 

You can configure the bandwidth if you need to (higher = better quality picture), and make a few other adjustments like resolution (why render at 1440p when the slave machine is outputting 1080p for example), and force the host to do hardware processing and a few other bits and bobs.

 

I don't think i'll be playing any fps any time soon with this but any games i can use my xbox controller with should be pretty good.

 

 

All in all i'm happy with the build, nice new htpc with the bonus of some gaming possibly. i'm not really inclined to install any games in the pc, although it might be interesting but possibly disappointing to to see the performance.

Edited January 13, 2015 by PANiC

[Forrester~SPARTA~]

Looks great

[Halli~SPARTA~]

Athlon will have pride in you're cpu and the comparison object.

 

Awesome little set up.

[Hunter~SPARTA~]

I've been looking into a proper HTPC setup for awhile now. Currently just have a laptop running XBMC on windows 7. I want to replace that with a small form factor case and also move my download processes to it as well (sab, sb, and cp).

 

I've heavily considered the NUC, like you mentioned, and almost pulled the trigger on black Friday. But the mixed reviews on streaming performance held me back from going through with it.

 

Keep us posted on your build and how it's performing, I for one am very interested.

[PANiC]

updated OP with i/o panel pic

 

i think benefits of the NUC would be that it is a lot smaller and has no moving parts, barely no heat, all good stuff. beats me why even mini ITX requires full sized DIMM slots, could save some space on the boards with SODIMMS. looked into a Gigabyte Brix at all? they seem to get good reviews.

 

 

been using a great prog for sorting out digital media collection btw: http://www.mediacentermaster.com/ one of the best apps i've ever bought. looking for something similar for music but not found the right thing yet.

[Krambo]

Nice P

[adder360~SPARTA~]

very nice

[Hunter~SPARTA~]

been using a great prog for sorting out digital media collection btw: http://www.mediacentermaster.com/ one of the best apps i've ever bought. looking for something similar for music but not found the right thing yet.

 

I checked it out briefly, didn't see anything ground breaking, for my purposes. Like I said I'm already on the sab/sb/cp download bundle with XBMC running the front end, so not sure theres anything in there that those can't do.

 

What in particular have you found most useful from it?

[PANiC]

needed to sort out about 700 randomly named files one of those jobs that you put off and it gets worse every week haha. I looked into XMBC doing this for me but it really struggled (few of years back, maybe it's changed?). MCM just went through the list, renamed em all, chucked them in folders - preferred format for some media players i think?, grabbed all the meta data from IMDB and other sites. now have fully organised tv series, hd films, sd films. for sorting out a big bile of junk, MCM just did a great job, the free version does all you want, i paid because i was impressed. i don;t use newsgroups but i think you have a better setup for sure, much most automatic and advanced your setup would be handy for a few guys round here.

 

neat and tidy

 

in each folder: cover art, xbmc back drops, meta data

 

list of meta data files you can choose to add, quite a few players supported

[Hunter~SPARTA~]

needed to sort out about 700 randomly named files one of those jobs that you put off and it gets worse every week haha. I looked into XMBC doing this for me but it really struggled (few of years back, maybe it's changed?).

 

That's true, if you're going through the steps of initially sorting your library, XBMC is not the best. When I moved to XBMC I had about 1400 movies and around 30 TV Shows. Luckily for me, I guess I think like a media player and already had my collection sorted more or less the way they like to read them:

V:\Movies\A\A Beautiful Mind\A Beautiful Mind.avi

V:\TV Series\Archer\Season 1\Archer S01E01.avi

However, I did still have to manually manipulate a good number of the movies for XBMC to parse them correctly, probably around 100 or so. Maybe one or two of the TV Series.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the metadata being stored in the folder with the movie itself. At some point one of the managers I tried did that, like yours is, and it drives me nuts. Especially when giving movies to someone else, they don't want or need all that extra stuff, especially if you're copying onto a limited space external HDD or flash drive.

[Hunter~SPARTA~]

looked into a Gigabyte Brix at all? they seem to get good reviews.

 

Hadn't heard of those before, good find. Been reading up on them the past few hours, seem like a good system.

 

I'll be deploying again here in the next few weeks, so won't be purchasing anything for awhile, but will be keeping a close eye on the NUC/Brix/barebones space while I'm gone.

[PANiC]

cools, i'm sure there is more smaller, faster things on the way :]