System Buyers Guide: PCs for Under $1000
by Wesley Fink on December 29, 2008 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Intel HTPC
To be honest, if there's one system in this roundup that is likely to get a lot of comments and criticisms, it's going to be the HTPC configuration. That's not to say that our particular configuration is unreasonable, but in the HTPC market we will invariably encounter many differing opinions about what is necessary and what is not. We detailed our assumptions about the HTPC configurations tin the introduction to the AMD HTPC System. You may want to look back at the considerations. We assume the end-user has already selected an HDTV or monitor and a sound system. Very few end-users need a TV tuner anymore so we are not making that recommendation. We also assume the primary use of the HTPC computer is to play, store, and stream Blu-Ray movies and other video entertainment.
| Intel HTPC System | ||
| Hardware | Component | Price |
| Processor | Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 Wolfdale (Dual-core 2.5GHz 65W 2MB Shared L2 800FSB) |
$83 |
| Cooling | CPU Retail HSF | - |
| Video | Onboard | - |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H NVIDIA GeForce 9400 | $135 |
| Memory | 4GB DDR2-800 - G.Skill F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ | $40 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EACS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM | $105 |
| Optical Drive | LG BD/HD DVD / 16x DVD+/- RW GGC-H20LK | $110 |
| Audio | Onboard | - |
| Case | Lian LI PC-V350A | $110 |
| Power Supply | PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS500 500W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail | $50 |
| Keyboard and Mouse | Logitech Cordless Desktop EX100 USB RF Wireless Keyboard and Optical Mouse | $25 |
| Operating System | Microsoft Vista Home Premium OEM | $99 |
| Bottom Line | $757 | |
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As discussed in the Intel Entry PC, the E5200 is an excellent value point in the Intel CPU line. Anything lower-priced is generally a lot lower in performance, but higher priced CPUs do not gain that much in performance. At $83 the dual-core E5200 is also an excellent match for an Intel HTPC. It doesn't hurt that the E5200 is rated at 65W, which will help keep the HTPC as quiet as possible.
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The motherboard for the Intel HTPC is the $135 Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H featuring the NVIDIA GF9400 chipset. Our motherboard reviews found this chipset and the GF9300 a better choice than G45 in HTPC systems due to superior video playback and overall system performance. A review of the GA-E7AUM-DS2H is scheduled for the near future. You can currently find a combo deal of this motherboard with the Intel Core Duo E7300, which was our choice in the Intel Budget system. At a $15 off combo price that reduces the E7300 net price to $105 making it an extremely good value with this Gigabyte board.
Some users have reported that the stock Intel CPU heatsink touches the chipset heatsink and they found the heatsink fit and worked best by rotating the heatsink 90 degrees. For best results check the fit and best positioning before completing the mount of the heatsink/fan.
The rest of the components are the same as those found in the AMD HTPC system, so please refer to the detailed discussion on the AMD HTPC page.
AMD systems have held the lead for some time in HD video and HTPC boxes. The AMD advantage was large enough that AnandTech hasn't really recommended an Intel HTPC build in the last few buyers' guides. This is the first buyers' guides to include both AMD and Intel HTPC system recommendations. The NVIDIA GeForce 9300/9400 chipsets have done a lot to level the HD and HTPC playing field. While we can't tell you HD playback capabilities are completely equal between AMD and Intel today, we can tell you that both HTPC builds provided smooth, stutter-free Blu-Ray playback. Certainly that is a primary concern for most HTPC system builders. However, if you intend to do video encoding in addition to video playback on your HTPC, the tri-core AMD setup does win out over the base E5200 in that area.
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Wixman666 - Monday, December 29, 2008 - link
Nonsense, you're forgetting that they are posting builds that are user friendly for the general public. 99% of the people in the US couldn't install Linux if their life depended on it. Even for many supposed "power users" it is not exactly friendly.While it is indeed a good alternative, Linux is still just not for the mainstream.
You guys also neglected to choose Vista 64 for forward thinking. Buying a 32 bit OS today is like throwing away money. If I wanted a 32 bit OS I'd buy XP home, pro, or media center.
n0nsense - Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - link
People in US do install and use Linux like in any other place.Dumb
Anyway you will install some OS and installing Vista is at least longer process at the first time and "find the drivers CD" on next time since even NIC wont work out of the box in most cases (XP much worse with default drivers).
And usability, if my 60 years old (in average) parents can use it without calling me few times a week (like they did with XP), anyone can :)
strikeback03 - Monday, December 29, 2008 - link
I'd guess that most users considering assembling their own computers (and for that matter most users who can put a CD in the drive) could install Ubuntu. And with reasonably mainstream hardware they might even have it run flawlessly. If you are willing to use the forums and such to find help you probably can get it to run on just about any system. The problem is that lots of people want it to just work, and you never know what you are getting with each new release. I have been using Ubuntu since 6.10 on my desktop and 7.04 on my laptop. Each release I have installed on the desktop has required new kernel flags to work around problems (noapic, nolapic, all_generic_ide, etc), and the 7.04, 7.10, and 8.04 LiveCDs didn't even boot without help. With 8.10 they seem to have fixed all that, I still haven't gotten around to actually installing it but it runs perfectly off a flash drive. My laptop (Thinkpad T43) , OTOH, had zero problems with any of the releases prior to 8.10, everything did just work. So I went ahead and installed 8.10 without any trial period, and it broke Wireless support, so that it would constantly disconnect from the router, then most times ask for the password on reconnecting and sometimes refusing to reconnect at all. Obviously not acceptable, so I went back to 8.04.I have installed Ubuntu on several other systems at work without problems (including one which is almost identical to my troubled desktop), but the point is that a lot of users probably don't want the uncertainty of whether their hardware will be happy with the software or not. Not that Vista has a spotless hardware support history, but most users probably feel more comfortable finding support for that than Linux.
JarredWalton - Monday, December 29, 2008 - link
Actually, we didn't specifically state whether you should buy the 64-bit or 32-bit version, though we did mention that 64-bit is the way to go if you run 4GB or more RAM. There's only a couple applications I use regularly that utterly fail under 64-bit Vista: Dragon NaturallySpeaking (still waiting for their 64-bit update!) and Gametap (a bunch of the games fail to install/work under 64-bit Vista). So it's still not 100% the same as 32-bit, but I do run 64-bit for my primary gaming PC. My work PC remains 32-bit until the Dragon issue is fixed.sprockkets - Monday, December 29, 2008 - link
If you can assemble a computer, you can install Linux.By the way, that WD Green drive has NEVER been a variable speed drive; it operates at 5400rpm ALL the time. WD just doesn't want the public to fret over the fact that it is a 5400rpm drive so they obfuscate this fact as much as possible.
cbutters - Monday, December 29, 2008 - link
I was just about to post that the WD wasn't a variable speed drive, but I see you have commented on it already, therefore, I second your post.n0nsense - Monday, December 29, 2008 - link
Truly, I can't understand why 20% of computer cost should be spent on OS.Yes, you can argue that other OS does not really support ALL games.
But when talking about Internet/Office/Media non professional use (in professional people can choose Mac) for what f... reason should person to spend this 100 USD on something really not needed. Actually it's more then 100$ since they gonna need "good anti everything" soft which will slow down their already not so fast computers.
On the other hand they can opt for something like Mythbuntu for HTPC, or Ubuntu for normal desktop and spend saved money on something better like tripling disk space, getting decent dedicated graphics and other things.
And i'm disappointed that you don't even mention this.
and please, add preview button for posts :)
DerwenArtos12 - Monday, December 29, 2008 - link
Why didn't you all use the Corsair ram you were raving about in your memory guide, it's only a couple bucks more?Wesley Fink - Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - link
We certainly like the Corsair memory as well. As we said in the Buyers Guide:"RAM prices as a whole are certainly in the commodity category as of late. We recommended the Kingston 4GB DDR2-800 kit, but you could just as easily choose OCZ, G.Skill, Corsair, Crucial, GeIL, Patriot, or any other quality DDR2-800 name and shop for the memory based on a combination of price and the company's support reputation."
BernardP - Monday, December 29, 2008 - link
I have had a system based on Asus M3N78-VM GeForce 8200 motheboard for a month. I have all the latest chipset, audio (NVidia + VIA) and video drivers installed. I have tried all possible audio settings and configurations, in WinXP and BIOS. Despite this, I have been unable to get audio through HDMI, although the HDMI video is perfect @ 1280x720.Searching on the net, this seems to be a widespread problem. Some users report they have HDMI audio working, but they don't seem to have done anything special to make it work.
The fundamental problem is that, on my system, there is no visible option to select HDMI audio, either in Hardware Manager or Control Panel/Sounds.
Anyone knows the sure-fire recipe to enable audio through HDMI on the 8200/8300 chipset?