Hi, I received a number of gift certificates and cash from fiends and relatives for my birthday back in May and I used them with some of my savings to build an HTPC for our living room. I'd started the build before Amelia was born, but now that she is here and sleeping most of the day it's time for some more tinkering.
The system is built on a relatively cheap AMD platform and performs very well.
Here are the system specs and costs in Canadian funds.
MB: $89.99 - Gigabyte 880GMZ-UD2H
CPU: $84.99 - AMD Phenom II x2 555 Black Edition Dual Core AM3 3.2GHZ
RAM: $48.99 - 2x 2GB Mushkin Silverline DDR3 1333Mhz
HD: $74.99 - Western Digital Cavair Green 2TB SATA
PSU: $49.99 - Corsair Builder Series CX430 V2 80W Plus
Case: $99.99 - Silverstone Grandia GD05 Black HTPC mATX
Extras: $37.99 - Rocketfish Micro Bluetooth Dongle
Total Cost: $486.93
The system build is a very standard setup, being that I chose the motherboard based on all the on board components, HDMI, DVI, VGA, Optical Audio, Multiple USB ports, and eSATA, there really was very little to setup. Insert parts in case, screw down, route cables and install an OS.
Here is a quick picture of all the insidy bits with the case lid off.
The case is a very nice smooth design with little rubber grommets and bushings to prevent vibration noise along with 3 ultra quiet case fans. You can see a large open drive bay section here, I opted for no optical drive as I already have a PS3 and a DVD player. For the installation of the OS I borrowed the one from my desktop.
For the OS and media centre software I've opted for Windows 7 and XBMC. I've run the older versions of XBMC on my first generation XBOX and it is a very finely tuned system that is both intuitive and fast. I did try a number of other options for the media centre interface but none seemed either as intuitive or have the file support that XBMC has.
I'll post up some more information, screen shots and how-to's as soon as I get a change to document them. But for now the system is working and operational.
The one thing I will reccomend anyone using this board and chip combo is do the BIOS update using the Gigabyte update utility and choose the Internet update vs. the file update.
After updating, rebooting and then re-setting up the BIOS for the settings I wanted I had a very nice surprise. When booting up Windows was detecting 4 cores and automatically installing the support for them. The BIOS update had unlocked the other 2 cores so I got a quad core system for the price of a dual core. Thanks Gigabyte!
Here are some pictures to keep you occupied in the mean time.
The system is built on a relatively cheap AMD platform and performs very well.
Here are the system specs and costs in Canadian funds.
MB: $89.99 - Gigabyte 880GMZ-UD2H
CPU: $84.99 - AMD Phenom II x2 555 Black Edition Dual Core AM3 3.2GHZ
RAM: $48.99 - 2x 2GB Mushkin Silverline DDR3 1333Mhz
HD: $74.99 - Western Digital Cavair Green 2TB SATA
PSU: $49.99 - Corsair Builder Series CX430 V2 80W Plus
Case: $99.99 - Silverstone Grandia GD05 Black HTPC mATX
Extras: $37.99 - Rocketfish Micro Bluetooth Dongle
Total Cost: $486.93
The system build is a very standard setup, being that I chose the motherboard based on all the on board components, HDMI, DVI, VGA, Optical Audio, Multiple USB ports, and eSATA, there really was very little to setup. Insert parts in case, screw down, route cables and install an OS.
Here is a quick picture of all the insidy bits with the case lid off.
The case is a very nice smooth design with little rubber grommets and bushings to prevent vibration noise along with 3 ultra quiet case fans. You can see a large open drive bay section here, I opted for no optical drive as I already have a PS3 and a DVD player. For the installation of the OS I borrowed the one from my desktop.
For the OS and media centre software I've opted for Windows 7 and XBMC. I've run the older versions of XBMC on my first generation XBOX and it is a very finely tuned system that is both intuitive and fast. I did try a number of other options for the media centre interface but none seemed either as intuitive or have the file support that XBMC has.
I'll post up some more information, screen shots and how-to's as soon as I get a change to document them. But for now the system is working and operational.
The one thing I will reccomend anyone using this board and chip combo is do the BIOS update using the Gigabyte update utility and choose the Internet update vs. the file update.
After updating, rebooting and then re-setting up the BIOS for the settings I wanted I had a very nice surprise. When booting up Windows was detecting 4 cores and automatically installing the support for them. The BIOS update had unlocked the other 2 cores so I got a quad core system for the price of a dual core. Thanks Gigabyte!
Here are some pictures to keep you occupied in the mean time.
