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New HTPC

edited February 2010 in Technology
Because Rym took the Mac mini, I've been in the market for a new living room computer.

I know we've recommended the Mac mini in the past, but it has some limitations. It's small and quiet, yes. But it has problems as well. If I want to say, play emulated NES games with wireless XBox 360 controllers, Mac mini isn't going to cut it. I could use boot camp to put Windows on there, but how well will the mini display port? Speaking of which, Mac mini also requires getting special A/V cables to connect to the TV. I also just don't want to give Apple any more money

Then I considered getting the ASUS eee box 1501. It's basically a netbook without a screen. The key is that this has the NVidia ION chips in it, so despite being underpowered, it can actually play some high definition video with GPU accelleration. It's really awesome at running Boxee, and such. But still, it won't be able to do certain things. For example, if I buy a game on Steam, like Trine, I can't really play that on here with three people at 1080p resolutions.

Then I dicovered the Dell Inspiron Zino HD. It's basically Dell's Mac mini. It's nice and small, and has HDMI and everything. The only problem is that it has AMD/ATi parts. I know you're going to get all fanboy on me about not wanting that, but hear me out. The thing here is that NVidia and Adobe are in bed. When it comes to watching Flash videos, NVidia has the GPU acceleration going on, and ATi doesn't. Also, Boxee <3 NVidia. The world is moving away from Flash slowly, but it's still here right now, and I don't know if the Zino has the horsepower to get the job done.

Now I'm considering just making a computer, as usual. The benefit of this is that the compute will be able to do ANYTHING. Crazy HD, crazy surround sound, Steam games on the TV with XBox controllers, everything I need. The downsides are that it will be big compared to the alternatives. MicroATX size probably. It might also be a few hundred dollars more, but I'll be getting a lot more horsepower in exchange. It might also be less quiet, but I can buy quiet parts on purpose.

What do you people think of <a href="http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=10449254">this computer?

It's somewhat small. Should be quiet. Only marginally more expensive than the Mac mini, but has much more horsepower. Also, I've got my SoundBlaster X-Fi sound card in my desktop that I will move over to this one. That will allow me to route the optical audio through it before sending it out to the sound system for awesome surround-ness and such.

So what say you? Mac mini with boot camp? Net-top? Dell Zino? Build my own? Something else?
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Comments

  • edited February 2010
    Then I dicovered theDell Inspiron Zino HD. It's basically Dell's Mac mini. It's nice and small, and has HDMI and everything. The only problem is that it has AMD/ATi parts. I know you're going to get all fanboy on me about not wanting that, but hear me out. The thing here is that NVidia and Adobe are in bed. When it comes to watching Flash videos, NVidia has the GPU acceleration going on, and ATi doesn't. Also, Boxee <3 NVidia. The world is moving away from Flash slowly, but it's still here right now, and I don't know if the Zino has the horsepower to get the job done.</p>
    Why did you even list this if you won't consider it because you're an Intel/nVidia fanboy?

    I prefer the build it yourself option, just easier to handle when things break. I'd recommend this video card as it's short like the card you selected and pretty much the best bang for your buck, but you're just gonna hate because it's ATI. So instead I'll recommend this card, which is 2-3 times as powerful as the one you selected.
    Post edited by George Patches on
  • edited February 2010

    I prefer the build it yourself option, just easier to handle when things break. I'd recommendthisvideo card as it's short like the card you selected and pretty much the best bang for your buck, but you're just gonna hate because it's ATI. So instead I'll recommendthiscard, which is 2-3 times as powerful as the one you selected.
    Those are both fatties with big fans and will be much louder than the tiny one I picked designed for HTPC. I don't need that extra power. I need just enough power, and no more because quietness, power consumption, size, and cost are more important.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • edited February 2010
    Those have large, lazy fans that make little to no noise. Seriously, my hard drives are louder. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that tiny little fan is louder.

    As for power, 1080P is a lot of pixels.
    Post edited by George Patches on
  • Because Rym took the Mac mini, I've been in the market for a new living room computer.
    You want it? It can't push full res to the TV... ;^)
  • You want it? It can't push full res to the TV... ;^)
    That's why you can have it.
  • Scott, you might be able to save a bit buying one of Intel's BOX boards and throwing it in a decent case with a beefy hard drive. I hear good things about the Ion-based models.

    Also, the Acer AspireRevo seems a good and silent choice if you make a few tweaks (add some more RAM, maybe a larger HD if you're not streaming) and are willing to drop $200-$330.
  • I'd recommend you build your own, Scott, though I'd give some of the components further consideration.
    • For example, why not this case? It comes with the PSU you were going to buy anyway.
    • Why are you going for pretty much the most expensive H55 motherboard? At the very least, you should look at what Gigabyte is offering.
    • 1.5TB comes at a lower cost per GB than 1TB.
    • At current prices, I think you might as well just get 4GB of RAM
    • As gedavids said, 1080p is a hell of a lot of pixels. That CPU will be good enough for video at that resolution, but the graphics card isn't going to cut it for games on the TV.
  • Well, if it isn't going to run Steam games or whatever, I might as well get the Mac mini, bootcamp Windows 7, and get the special cables to connect it to the TV.
  • I might as well get the Mac mini, bootcamp Windows 7, and get the special cables to connect it to the TV.
    But then you won't have 1080p for your videos.
  • Well, if it isn't going to run Steam games or whatever, I might as well get the Mac mini, bootcamp Windows 7, and get the special cables to connect it to the TV.
    But...but it will if you get a better GPU. Whaaaaa?
  • I might as well get the Mac mini, bootcamp Windows 7, and get the special cables to connect it to the TV.
    But then you won't have 1080p for your videos.
    I have a new Mac mini and it outputs 1080p just fine. I haven't put any other OSes on it though, so I don't know if that matters.
  • I have a new Mac mini and it outputs 1080p just fine. I haven't put any other OSes on it though, so I don't know if that matters.
    Ah, I thought Rym was saying it doesn't do 1080P.

    Right then, feel free to push some moneys into Uncle Steve's pocket.
  • edited February 2010
    Yeah, the new Mac Mini would presumably be much more powerful than your old one, probably enough so for 1080p. However, I think building your own would still be better.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • I will recommend getting a NetTop with ION. My little netbook with ION is quite robust. More powerful than a laptop I bought 2 years ago.

    Lifehacker did a little How-to regarding this.
  • Ah, I thought Rym was saying it doesn't do 1080P.
    That's because the Mac mini Rym has is the old Core Solo one.
    I will recommend getting a NetTop with ION. My little netbook with ION is quite robust. More powerful than a laptop I bought 2 years ago.Lifehacker did a little How-to regarding this.
    The only thing about the ION is I kind of want to be able to play some Steam games like SFIV or Trine on the TV.

    What makes it tough is that for my needs, I have a balancing act to make. Maybe I'll just give up on trying to play Steam games on the TV, and just stick to the video watching. As long as I go with Windows instead of OSX, even if it's a Mac mini, I'll be able to play plenty of non graphics intensive games and such.
  • edited February 2010
    Then I dicovered theDell Inspiron Zino HD. It's basically Dell's Mac mini. It's nice and small, and has HDMI and everything. The only problem is that it has AMD/ATi parts. I know you're going to get all fanboy on me about not wanting that, but hear me out. The thing here is that NVidia and Adobe are in bed. When it comes to watching Flash videos, NVidia has the GPU acceleration going on, and ATi doesn't.
    That's simply false.

    Scott, if you believe size is the most important aspect of the card, you should first note that the GT 220 you chose is actually not very small. AMD's newest offerings, the HD 5450 and 5570, are low-profile cards and much smaller. Here's a quote from AnandTech's HD 5570 review:
    Last, but certainly not least however, is the area the 5570 excels at: low-profile cards. The low-profile market is basically dominated by bottom-tier cards such as the GeForce 210, Radeon 4350, Radeon 5450, and of course a number of even older cards. The 5570 is faster than every single one of them, usually by a factor of 2-3x. Compared to the 5450 in particular, it fits in the same form factor and offers around 3x the performance for only $25 more. The use of Redwood as opposed to Cedar does mean it consumes more power and generates more heat, but this should be a bearable tradeoff for the significant performance improvement in most low-profile cases.
    Personally, I wouldn't bother with low-profile, but the HD 5570 will probably give you sufficient performance for 1080p gaming if you keep the settings as low as possible and don't play Crysis. Unfortunately, though they covered the HTPC aspects well, AnandTech's review didn't have tests without AA and maximum quality settings, so check out the Tom's Hardware review for those. It seems that the HD 5570 is powerful enough for 1080p on a game like Left 4 Dead, which isn't demanding.

    If low-profile isn't essential (which seems to be the case given that you already chose the GT 220), then I wouldn't recommend these two; there are a couple of options to consider. The previously mentioned AnandTech review has power and noise charts, and based on those the GT 220, GT 240 and the HD 5670 should be considered. The GT 220 you picked is a pretty good cheaper option, and the GT 240 offers a lot more performance for another ~$25, but that card is heavily outclassed by the HD 5670 for ~$15 more. The HD 5670 is still a single-slot card, rather quiet, and gets its power solely from the PCIe slot. In fact, it's similar in size to your chosen GT 220. In my opinion, it's the best card on the market for a small gaming-capable HTPC.
    So where does that leave the 5670? The 5670 does surprisingly well against the 9800 GT. It wins in some cases, trails very slightly in a few more, and then outright loses only in games where the 5670 is already playable up to 1920x1200. From a performance standpoint I think the 9800 GT is ahead, but it’s not enough to matter; meanwhile the “green” 9800 GT shortens the gap even more, and it still is over 10W hotter than the 5670. The 5670 is a good enough replacement for the 9800 GT in that respect, plus it has support for DX11, Eyefinity, and 3D Blu-Ray when that launches later this year.
    Yes, this card is comparable to the 9800 GT, which is a card Scott is definitely familiar with. As mentioned above, there's a "green" version of that card which also is powered only by the PCIe slot, and is also worth a look.

    If you step up to dual-slot cards, the HD 5750 is probably the weakest card that will do well at 1080p once you start to turn up the quality settings, while still being relatively quiet and low in power consumption.

    On the other hand, if you mostly drop the gaming requirement, the HD 5450 is well worth considering. According to AnandTech's review:
    Currently it’s HTPC use that puts the 5450 in the most favorable light. As the Cheese Slices test proved, it’s not quite the perfect HTPC card, but it’s very close. Certainly it’s the best passively cooled card we have tested from an image quality perspective, and it’s the only passive card with audio bitstreaming. If you specifically want or need Vector Adaptive Deinterlacing, the Radeon HD 5670 is still the cheapest/coolest/quietest card that’s going to meet your needs. But for everyone else the 5450 is plenty capable and is as close to being perfect as we’ve seen any bottom-tier card get.
    The most notable aspect here is that it's passively cooled.

    Overall, I'd say that AMD's new HD 5xxx series of cards, even the higher-end ones, all offer almost unprecedented low levels of power consumption and noise at various levels of performance, as well as a whole new range of features. At the same time, however, the performance overall isn't much of a step up from the previous generation within similar price ranges - for example, the aging HD 4850 is probably still the best card on the market in terms of performance per dollar.

    So, one might ask, what is it that makes these new cards more efficient? The answer is, in fact, rather obvious. All of AMD's new HD 5xxx series are 40nm cards, as are Nvidia's GeForce 210, GT 220 and GT 240. Overall, since efficiency seems to be the most critical factor to Scott, I would definitely say that these are the cards he ought to look at.

    Here's all the relevant 40nm cards in, roughly speaking, order of performance, with current approximate market prices:
    Nvidia GeForce 210 ~$40
    AMD Radeon HD 5450 ~$50
    Nvidia GeForce GT 220 ~$60
    AMD Radeon HD 5570 ~$85
    Nvidia GeForce GT 240 ~$85
    AMD Radeon HD 5670 ~$100
    AMD Radeon HD 5750 ~$140

    So, Scott, what are your thoughts on the HD 5450, 5570 and 5670?
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • edited February 2010
    The only thing about the ION is I kind of want to be able to play some Steam games like SFIV or Trine on the TV.
    Well, my netbook can handle Half Life 1 and Need For Speed Under Ground 2 with full graphics at 1024x768 at full frame rate. If that's good enough for SFIV (I don't know), then you should be all set.
    Post edited by Victor Frost on
  • The only thing about the ION is I kind of want to be able to play some Steam games like SFIV or Trine on the TV.
    Well, my netbook can handle Half Life 1 and Need For Speed Under Ground 2 with full graphics at 1024x768 at full frame rate. If that's good enough for SFIV (I don't know), then you should be all set.
    1920x1080 is ~2.64 times as many pixels as 1024x768, and those are old games.
  • I checked the recommended requirements for the games I would most likely play on the TV as opposed to on my desktop. The requirements are mad low. So even the GT220 is way way more powerful than I would need for these purposes. Thus, I think there is some wiggle room to find something that maximizes quietness.
  • edited February 2010
    If it's powerful enough for you, get the HD 5450 because it's passively cooled.
    As for the requirements, you also have to keep in mind that they're probably for a lower resolution like 1024x768, which, as I stated before, is 2.64 times less pixels than 1080p.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • I think I'm going to prioritize a card that is quiet, perhaps even fanless. Since even though I might want to do some gaming, video watching will be far more frequent. I'll get just enough GPU accelleration to deal with things like PS1 emulation and such.
  • Have you been playing SFIV on Steam this entire time? If you really just want joystick games on your TV, you could always grab Xbox copies. Granted, paying twice for a game is almost always ridiculous, so I could understand not doing so.
  • Have you been playing SFIV on Steam this entire time? If you really just want joystick games on your TV, you could always grab Xbox copies. Granted, paying twice for a game is almost always ridiculous, so I could understand not doing so.
    I'm probably going to buy Super Street Fighter IV for XBox. If I do that, the only actual game I will need horsepower for to play on the HTPC will be Trine, since that is PC/PS3 only. No point in buying an expensive video card for just one game. I'm just going to get something that can pump out the 1080p video smoothly and quietly.
  • edited February 2010
    Have you been playing SFIV on Steam this entire time? If you really just want joystick games on your TV, you could always grab Xbox copies. Granted, paying twice for a game is almost always ridiculous, so I could understand not doing so.
    I'm probably going to buy Super Street Fighter IV for XBox. If I do that, the only actual game I will need horsepower for to play on the HTPC will be Trine, since that is PC/PS3 only. No point in buying an expensive video card for just one game. I'm just going to get something that can pump out the 1080p video smoothly and quietly.
    Hmm, well, despite being a 2D platformer, Trine has 3D graphics. The official minimum requirements are a GeForce 6800 or Radeon X800, which means that the lowest current-gen cards won't actually be powerful enough. Based on this chart, the GeForce 210 and HD 4550 (and hence the HD 5450 since it's slightly weaker than the HD 4550), aren't powerful enough. However, it's only a little step in cost to the next tier, so it's worth considering a little more graphics power.

    Consequently, you should consider slightly more powerful cards such as the HD 5570 and GT 220 from the newer generation, and the HD 4650 and HD 4670 from the previous generation of Radeons (older GeForce cards aren't really up to scratch as HTPC cards). The HD 4650 is ~$50 and so it's your cheapest option. The GT 220 DDR2 will offer a similar level of performance for ~$60, but with less power usage. A DDR3 version will cost you closer to ~$70, offering a little more power, but for that price you can get an HD 4670, which is a more powerful card but still relatively low in power usage. The HD 5570 is overpriced at ~$85, unless you really want a low-profile card, or want the features AMD offers.

    Considering that all of the cards I've discussed are quite efficient, then based on this Newegg search, these are great deals, if you can count on the rebates:
    $43 after $20 rebate:- MSI GeForce GT 220 512MB DDR2
    $70 after $20 rebate: ECS Geforce GT 240 512MB GDDR5
    $85 after $10 rebate: Powercolor Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5
    It would seem that the best deals with rebates up until the 5670 are Nvidia cards.

    However, here's some cards that I think Scott should strongly consider, based on his already demonstrated inclinations towards the quietest cards possible. All of these are passively cooled and ought to be good enough to run Trine. On the other hand, if you're willing to sacrifice on the ability to play Trine, then quite honestly you don't need a discrete graphics card in the first place. Just get get sufficiently powerful integrated graphics and you ought to save some money; Nvidia's ION would be essentially optimal, unless there's a specific feature you're looking for that ION doesn't provide.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • My only concern with ion is if it will be able to handle 3d tasks such as emulating a PS1 with no trouble.
  • edited February 2010
    According to Wikipedia's page on ePSXe,
    ePSXe's stated system requirements are:[4]

    * Processor: Pentium 200 MHz, recommended 1 GHz.
    * RAM: 256 MB RAM, recommended 512 MB RAM.
    * Graphics card: 3D graphics card needed with support for OpenGL or DirectX.
    * Operating system: Windows: 9x (95, or 98/98SE), NT (XP, 2000, Vista, etc) -- GNU/Linux (any distro will do)
    * CD-ROM: 16x or faster (optional)

    If the computer just meets the minimum system requirements, ePSXe will emulate games roughly, averaging from about 60% to 100% full speed depending on what plugins are used and how high the settings are on them.
    I doubt you'll have much trouble, though you will probably need to fiddle with the settings somewhat to get optimal performance. For one thing, emulators will only use a single core of your CPU.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • A new Mac mini requires this $70 cable to connect to a TV proper-like.
  • I think we have those in my school's ECE store for around $20.

    Apple markups are ridiculous.
  • I think we have those in my school's ECE store for around $20.

    Apple markups are ridiculous.
    It's not an Apple product.
  • I think we have those in my school's ECE store for around $20.

    Apple markups are ridiculous.
    It's not an Apple product.
    Ah, look at that. Well, still. $70 is ridiculous.
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