Br0sk: Best price/performance HTPC on a budget 2012

Recently my old Dell Dimension 9200 died and it needed to be replaced with something new. It was 10 years ago I built my last HTPC so I was a bit out of the game. I went on the hunt for some good information about what components to get the to fulfil my requirements. I couldn't find much good up to date information out there. I came across www.mymediaexperience.com site and it got some great guides and tips. They offer a great guide to building your own HTPC. It is in PDF format and they claim that they update it so that it stays current with regards to the hardware. Just sign upp to their new letter and the PDF will be available for you. I took most of the ideas and inspiration from the budget alternative they offer. I changed a few things to make it fit my needs.

My Requirements

Keep the cost below £600
Low energy consumption(somewhere around 25 Watts in idle mode)
Low noise
Ability to show HD video in full HD resolution
Run Windows 7
Act as a Plex server for at least 4 devices at once
Run a Plex client
Run Windows Media Centre using Freeview HD signal
Possibility to control the PC using Unified Remote for Android
Possibility to use laptops as mouse and keyboard using Input Director
Possibility to login remotely using Windows Remote Desktop Connection without kicking the current user out.

The Result

I have now been running the setup for a week and I am thoroughly impressed with what this relatively cheap machine can do.

The price at the time of purchase ended up at £529.68 and was as you can see under budget. You can find links to a the components below. I haven't measured the energy consumption but if I put it like this the room where the HTPC is running is not half as warm as it was with the old Dell 9200. The machine is very quiet. You can barely hear the fans from a few meters distance. HD video runs smooth and the built in graphics card doesn't have any problems showing the Freeview HD channels. The plex server runs without any problems. I have been streaming from 3 PC's and a Samsung Galaxy S3 at the same time without any problems. At the same time I was running the Plex client on a 42" full HD TV from the new machine. The processor easily copes with this load. Freeview is running just fine in MCE. As I mention further down it is important to have a good strength signal to get it to work perfectly. No problem with Unified remote. It is much more responsive on this new server, especially when it comes to synching the remotes. Input director is running just fine and we can control the HTPC from any laptop this way. I have implemented this http://br0sk.blogspot.com/2011/12/concurrent-remote-desktop-htpc-setup.html on the new PC and it works perfectly fine.

Overall I am extremely happy with the build and wouldn't have wanted to do it in any other way. I would suggest this setup to anybody with similar requirement to mine. Below follows a link of all the components needed to build this HTPC/media server.

The Components

Here is my selection of components and a motivation to why I selected the components.

The case - Fractal Design Define Mini Series Micro ATX Case - Black Pearl

This is an excellent Swedish designed case. It is built to be quiet. It comes with padded inside and blocked case fan holes. It has two quiet case fans that can be controlled by the bundled fan controller. Since we are not going to use a dedicated graphics card we will not need to mount any more fans or open up the two spare fan holes. Since my HTPC will be hidden away in a small room separate from the living room I went for a bigger, cooler and more quiet case. If I would have had the computer on display in the living room I would probably have selected a more Hi-Fi like case. I am very happy with the case choice it beats my old Antec Sonata Piano II hands down when it comes to build quality and sound levels.

Gigabyte SKT-1155 Z68MA-D2H-B3 Motherboard

This motherboard was selected since it can take the new Intel I3 processors. It has a built in Intel graphics card that is capable of rendering full HD movies as TV broadcasts and Blu-Ray. It also has optical sound out that I need for the connection to the 5.1 amplifier. It is also in the Micro ATX format that fits nicely in the selected case. It has a good price to performance ratio. One thing to note is that you should download the latest drivers from the manufacturers homepage. I had a problem with distorted sound over HDMI before I did so. The HDMI outlet is HDCP compatible, this means that it allows playback of Blu-ray/HD DVD and other protected media content.

Intel Core i3 2125 3.3 GHz Processor with Socket 1155, L3 3Mb, Sandy Bridge, 32nm

We are going for an Intel I3 processor because of the price, energy efficiency, power and ability to process HD content. I am choosing the 2125 since it has the Intel HD 3000 technology built in. This is important since we are going for a system that is not going to make use of a dedicated graphics card. You could go for the 2105 but it is slightly slower and at the time of purchase the 2125 was cheaper. You need an I3 processor ending with a model number ending in 5, the other ones have the HD 2000 which is not as powerful and probably demands a dedicated Graphics card to play HD movies.

OCZ AGT3-25SAT3-120G Agility 3 120GB SATA III 2.5 inch SSD

To make sure that the HTPC is quick at launching programs and that it runs quietly we select an SSD drive for the Windows installation. It is totally worth the extra money. I am only using this disk to install Windows and the essential programs like Plex. All the media goes on the 2 gig HDD. This SSD is great for the price and works just fine together with the I3 processor above.
This is probably the component in our build that will have the highest Windows performance score.

Corsair CMPSU-430CXV2UK Builder Series CX430V2 - 80 Plus Certified Power Supply

Since our build is not as demanding as a high end gaming machine we can go for a cheaper PSU. One of our requirements is to keep the HTPC quiet, this Corsair is an excellent choice if you need a silent PC. I have been running it for a week now and the machine is rock solid. It seems to be able to power the components I picked without any problems. If you are planning to power 4 raided disks and a high power graphics card you should pick another more powerful PSU. For my purposes this is an excellent choice. www.mymediaexperience.com are suggesting an Antec PSU, I am sure that is just fine but I have had three Antec PSU's in my life and eventually they have all failed with a bang so I am going for Corsair this time.

G-Skill Ripjaws DDR3 PC10666 1333MHz 4GB Kit

Since we are going to run Windows 7 64 bit on the machine we need at least 4 gigs of RAM. We want RAM that will stay cool and stable. We are not overclocking or anything like that so we should be fine with relatively cheap memory. I am going for this pair because they have built in cooling plates and a good price. You could argue for getting 8 gigs straight away but 4 is just fine for our purposes. The motherboard allows for another identical pair to be put in if needed.

PCTV Systems DVB-T2 290e nanoStick HD TV Tuner - Watch, Pause & Record Digital Freeview Hi Definition and Standard Definition TV on your PC. Stream LIVE TV to your iPad, iPhone, PC or MAC.

One of the features of this HTPC is for us to be able to watch and record UK Freeview. To do this you need a TV tuner. I needed one that could handle both the SD and HD channels. At the point of buying the components for this build this was about the only card that would properly receive the terrestrial Freeview HD channels. It needs a good strength signal to work but when it has that it works flawlessly. Installation is super simple plug and play to get it working in Windows Media Center. Scanning is slow but after that it just works. If you want to be able to record and watch you will need two of these.

Seagate Barracuda 3.5 inch 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB 6GB/S Internal SATA Drive

Since the build is a combined HTPC and media server installation we need a proper disk to house our media. Especially since we decided to go for an SSD as the Windows disk.
I am choosing this Seagate since that is a brand I have never had any crashes with. The drive is also extremely quite when it comes to reading and writing. It is barely noticeable when it reindexes the whole music meta data using the Plex media server. I am not running a RAID configuration to protect the media. Instead I am backing up the whole media computer using www.backblaze.com. You can back up an unlimited amount of data for $3.96 / month. This is only an option if you have a connection with decent upload speed.