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Help me build my new Home Theater PC
JavaJones:
Hard Drive is going to contribute minimally to power use (~10-20w when in use vs. ~80-120+ for CPU), so I'd go for a decently fast, but standard drive. 7200RPM should be fine. WD's Green Drive series I think do run at 7200, at least some (recent ones are variable, but should max out at 7200), but are slightly less performant than a standard drive due to power saving techniques. Still worth it for lower power and heat output though I think.
The CPU and graphics card are going to be the heart of performance *and* heat in your system, so those are what you should choose most carefully. Intel is generally the leader here in terms of performance-per-watt which should probably be your main criteria, followed closely by performance-per-dollar (where AMD will lead).
I don't know your budget, haven't read the rest of this thread, but personally I'd be inclined to go for the best performance with reasonable heat envelope and get an Intel Core i7 860. Reasonable price (less than $300, say $280 US), comparatively good (i.e. low) power consumption for the performance (95w), and great performance. That'll be your best price/performance ratio in the i7 series. The one caveat to this is the actual per-core clock is not super high, so single-threaded work loads won't be as fast as they might be with a CPU at a higher clock speed, with fewer cores. That being said an increasing number of HD video codec playback systems are becoming multithreaded, as are many other applications. If price or heat are a bigger issue, consider an i5 650 (3.2Ghz, 73W, $185) which also has the advantage of a higher per-core clock speed (but only 2 cores).
As I said I'd go for the i7 860. As codecs get more complicated, the decoding computational demand rises, even at equivalent resolution (e.g. 1080p), and CPU decoding is likely to come before GPU accelerated decoding for any new codecs (e.g. VP8, next-gen MPEG, etc.). Due to the increasing ubiquity of multiple cores, most future apps, especially computationally demanding ones, will be multithreaded.
As for the graphics card, surprisingly almost any modern (current generation) card, even a low-end one, will accelerate HD content decoding pretty well. I would get something fairly middle-of-the-road. I don't think it even matters too much ATI vs. Nvidia, though I'll say I generally like Nvidia's drivers better, and they seem to have a slight edge in industry support. ATI has historically had better *DVD* decoding, and may also have a slight lead in Blu-ray as a perhaps natural consequence (the lead was mostly in interlaced video decoding), but you'd have to read some current reviews on that for the latest info as I'm really unsure.
As for the audio card, your choice is fine I guess, but I don't think you need a dedicated card to just HDMI your digital sources out to separate decoding hardware, which is what I assume you're doing. A good video player, codec, and graphics card will give you everything you need, HDMI'd out to your system and decoded there with better signal to noise, etc. I have a fairly low-end graphics card in my media PC from a couple years back and it HDMIs audio out just fine.
For the media center, honestly I think the open source/free solutions are largely ahead of the commercial ones (of which I'm not even aware of any major ones). The available free options are pretty robust and impressive IMO. Lots of threads on DC about 'em.
- Oshyan
Shades:
Would an i5 not suffice?
I read on Tom's Hardware that the performance of some i5 processors rival with the i7 while costing a lot less. In that way you more money to spend on Netflix (or whichever online/offline distribution system you prefer).
If you plan to use this system for not only for decoding video but also for a lot of encoding video, get an Intel. My daily PC is an AMD and I am fond of using it. Until I want to encode some video, there is where Intel always had the upper hand in my experience. However if encoding is not a primary concern, get AMD...which leaves you again with more money to spend on content to watch.
Onboard audio quality from motherboards nowadays is fine enough by my standards. Besides that, spend money on a decent amplifier (Revox) and good speakers (Wharfedale is my brand of choice), those pack a whole lot of "punch" in small boxes. Not only your ears will love you for it, your better half will too. Again from personal experience, I have to meet the first woman that likes to have big speakers in any room.
JavaJones is absolutely right about video cards and media center software.
EDIT: Added link
JavaJones:
An i5 would be fine for now, yes, but I think it makes sense to build for the future and with decoders becoming increasingly multithreaded, and newer codecs also becoming increasingly CPU-intensive, it makes sense to spend the extra $100 for the i7 IMO.
Onboard audio should never become a factor since you ought to be just using the digital audio output and decoding in dedicated hardware outside the PC. If you *are* using analog audio, then getting a dedicated sound card is a good idea though. Motherboard audio is fine for most normal uses, but for home theater purposes it'll be noisier than you'd want.
- Oshyan
Josh:
First, thanks to all so far for the replies.
Here is my question. After reading the comments here thus far, I am beginning to wonder if that HomeTheater audio card is worthwhile. Would doing what is suggested above, going with a digital output to a receiver, be more beneficial than using this sound card? I am trying to cut down on cost here but am willing to spend money where I need to so it is almost a double edged sword.
That said, do any sound cards offer optical out? Is the standard RCA style digital out jack preferred?
Thoughts?
JavaJones:
If you already have a decent home theater "receiver"/amp with digital inputs and surround sound decoding, then you definitely want to do your decoding there and just output digital from the computer. The sound card you linked to appears to be mainly useful for taking existing analog sources in a system and outputting them to digital for external decoding and playback and for passthrough of existing digital blu-ray source data (which should be a function of your player and work with other HDMI output ports anyway, and also assumes you will be buying a blu-ray drive). However if you get the right other components in your system they ought to pass through digital audio with no intermediate analog step, thus maintaining max quality and avoiding the need for a separate sound card. That has at least been my experience. You will want to verify all that of course. If you do decide to go with a separate sound card, the Auzentech options seem well regarded, though I can't find a review for that particular model.
Whatever solution you go with, you'd want to use digital out, whether optical or HDMI. I'd recommend HDMI if you can do it, just for ease of cabling and modern spec compliance. RCA out is analog and definitely not preferred. With HDMI, even if your amp doesn't support it, you should be able to go to your TV with HDMI, then output to your amp from there with some other digital connection (e.g. optical - hopefully your TV supports it). Finding a common digital connector for all your components is obviously a must.
Finally, the nice thing about a separate audio card is you can always purchase and install it later. So I would recommend against springing for it now, just plan against it for the initial build and you can get it out of consideration and out of the budget. Then build your system on the assumption that you'll pump everything through your graphic's card's HDMI and/or through a motherboard optical out (most have them these days, but verify on the model you choose). Then if you get it and it doesn't all play nice, you can always fall back to analog audio and then upgrade to the separate audio card as soon as you're ready. Motherboards come with audio whether you want it or not, so it's not like the decision against the separate card will affect anything else at this point, and it can easily be decided on later.
- Oshyan
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