HTPC Build Log: Part 4.... How Does It Work?

A few months ago during my HTPC Build Logs, I talked about "cutting the cable". Well; I did it! Actually, what I did was; do away with cable TV, which was in excess of $70, upgraded our internet to "unlimited" Data at 1Gb down and 50Mb up speed. It's roughly $30 per month. I'd have to say pretty good, now that they've actually blocked all the channels from the feed after a month. 

We either use Kodi, or go directly to the network and watch our shows from through the browser. My daughter who's the main TV watcher likes to "binge-watch" FoodTV shows anyway, so Kodi is a great answer for that. She can watch several shows one after another. And since we have an HTPC hooked up to every TV, she can do that while her brother monopolizes the gameroom TV for gameplay. How has those machines worked?

I'd have to say that the "Den" system running out of the tiny Silverstone PT13 has been an absolute stunner! As you can see, from the illustration, it's amazingly small, but the main thing has been it's performance. So far, it has clearly outperformed the Viking build in our bedroom which is based on an ASRock board running an AMD A6-3600. That part isn't terribly surprising since it's a Gigabyte B75 Haswell generation board, but it's only running a Pentium 2030T low voltage processor using the onboard graphics! All three of the HTPCs run 8Gb of RAM, SSDs for the OS and Windows 7. The main system which has an AMD A8-7600 does pretty well but that should be no surprise. However, that little Intel system is essentially a "business class" chipset with a ultra-low-voltage CPU designed for USFF cases. Right now, it's the "mighty mite" of our fleet!
 

HTPC Build-Log: Part 3..... It's been a good week!

It's been a good week......, no check that; it's been a GREAT week..... in the HTPC world that is! In the last build-log, I had said that the ID Cooling coolers were delivered, but there were other issues that delayed the update of my HTPC fleet. Anyway; "we have overcome"!

I got momentum when the delayed conversion of our bedroom HTPC went off without a hitch. In fact, the speed and ease of which this theoretically "out of date" A75/A6-3600 motherboard/CPU combo went about it's tasks was a surprise. My pride would like to attribute this to me applying these older (read cheaper) components to jobs that it does particularly well. I may be right, or I might be just lucky; who knows, who cares? The fact is that this combination of pretty prosaic parts are an excellent match for it's intended job of a HTPC. If you haven't been keeping score, here it is:

• $48 - ASRock A75m-ITX, AMD A6-3600 MB/APU combo (eBay)
• $12 - ID Cooling DK-03, Heatsink/120mm fan (Amazon)
• $0 - Silverstone SG08Lite case (old machine)
• $0 - Seasonic 500w PSU (old machine)
• $0 - Intel 80Gb SSD, Hitachi 500Gb HDD, Slot-loading DVD-RW (old machine)
• $60 - Total 

 

No; you are not looking at the inside of the SG-08. This is in fact, the inside of a Silverstone SG-05. ??? So, after the sucess of the "Viking" HTPC, I moved right on to the replacement to "Bronco" machine that fulfills the HTPC role in the downstairs den. Since it was a low-powered "thin" PC it uses a "wide-voltage" external power supply. The issue I had on Sunday was that it used a different adapter than what I was using. In the ensuing 2 days, I realized that there were several random adapters from dead laptops that I've accumulated. In the pile, I found HP one that worked. After a quick OS load-up; this machine was ready as well! Again I was a little surprised by the speed of this machine! At least this board should be fast, since it's LGA-1150 of the "Broadwell" generation. Anything else left to do on this?

• $39.68 - Gigabyte GA-B75TN motherboard (eBay)
• $34.28 - Intel Pentium 2030T CPU (eBay)
• $19.99 - Silverstone NT-07 HSF (Amazon)
• $12.54 - 4Gb DDR3 SO-DIMM (eBay)
• $0 - Other 4Gb DDR3 SO-DIMM (spare parts box)
• $0 - Crucial M4 mSATA 256Gb SSD (spare parts box)
• $0 - Power adapter (closet of doom)
• $106.49 - Total

Well.... yes. The SG05 is a temporary home. My ultimate evil plan is to pick up a Silverstone PT13. The reason is obvious: it's so small and cool! What about the 3rd HTPC?

I get to do this all day Saturday, and I do mean all day. I'm an academic competition coach and sponsor at school. While my debaters fell just short of advancing to state level competition, my top Social Studies kid is an alternate to the Regional Competition this year. So I get to drive him and all the others from both high schools in our district, 2 and a half hours East and South into the heart of the Piney Wood to Stephen F. Austin University at Nacogadoches. In order to get there on time, we'll be leaving at 5am, putting me getting up at 4am since I have to get the bus. We'll finish around 4pm. I'll be getting home somewhere around 9pm! Therefore, despite the arrival of the 8-pin EPS adapter, there'll be no finishing the HTPC in the main A/V system till Sunday. Here are the numbers for the last machine.

• $30.25 - Gigabyte GA-F2A78M-HD2 motherboard (eBay)
• $66.35 - AMD A8-7600 APU (eBay)
• $40 - Corsail Vengeance Pro 8Gb DDR3/1866 RAM (eBay)
• $5.81 - Creative Labs Soundblaster Live Soundcard (eBay)
• $0 - Ahanix D-Vine5 case (old machine)
• $0 - Intel 120Gb SSD (parts box)
• $0 - Hitachi DeskStar 500Gb HDD, Sony Blu-Ray optical drive (old machine)
• $106.35 - Total    

All of these totals include not only the cost of parts, but also the shipping costs as well, so I figure the grand total of $272.84 is pretty OK. That's about $90 per on 3 pretty up-to-date machines that do their jobs well. They are going to allow me to "cut the cord". The end of Netflix, and the end of Cable TV service. Those 2 things by themselves come to something like $80-90 per month! That puts this upgrade to paying off in 3 months! Do I wish, I was already done after all the planning and waiting? Sure I am, but I'm OK with the progress so far. I can see the end of the road from here!

Upgrading My HTPC(s): Part 2

Just like the real S-3 "Viking", that the U.S. Navy retired in 2009, and Lockheed has recently been trying to resurrect; there wasn't supposed be a "Part 2". Then on the way to upgrading the rest of my HTPC fleet, a funny thing happened..... I know; you're probably already rolling your eyes, right? So, I'm going to go ahead and explain the "why" and then the "how" of it. ..... And NO, I'm not doing this to make myself feel better about spending another $50. So here goes:

Last week I came across a motherboard on eBay that was packaged with a processor and the HSF (heat-sink-fan) that ended up costing $48 with free shipping. From a purely economic standpoint; if you can upgrade something for less than $50.... you should do it! So, here are the "players". It's an ASRock A75M-ITX with an AMD A6-3600 APU. We can start with that the processor alone often sells for around $50. Granted, it's cheap, but so are any of the hundreds of the P4 boards out there. But that still doesn't answer the question of why?

The machine that I was planing on not upgrading was the "Viking" HTPC in our master bedroom. It's hard to believe that it was originally build in the later part of 2012. A couple of years ago it got rebuilt into a Silverstone case with a very low-powered "Ivy Bridge" generation Celeron which occasionally struggles, but is still pretty usable. However, while Intel processors of the "Core" generation wipe the floor with AMD, their integrated graphics aren't anything to "write home about". So....., if you want something that does a nice job with video, where processing power takes a "backseat"; your pretty much back with AMD's APUs. 

In this case the A75 chipset boards are from second generation AMD APUs. The A6-3600 chip I'll be using will not only have 4 CPU cores, but also an onboard Radeon HD 6430 D GPU which is a pretty good thing for an HTPC. So, it comes down to the fact that this board would be significantly more powerful than the Celeron 847 for a fairly minimal investment. If we were to continue on our current use case scenario where we occasionally get on to the internet for Youtube and catching up with a TV show on a network site, I probably wouldn't bother. However, our changeover to using Kodi (XMBC) on a regular basis changes the hardware demands.The machine now routinely has to process 1080p streams. This is just something that Intel's integrated graphics of that generation does well. Which takes us back to the $50 economic answer to the technical question of whether or not I can/should upgrade a system. And that translates to be: You Bet, if the benefit/need is there and the price is low enough!