Motherboard And CPU
Processor: AMD Phenom X4 9350e
It starts with a platform. At the heart of any HTPC (and indeed, much of the consumer electronics hardware you see) is a very PC-ish infrastructure. For this particular build, we employ an AMD Phenom X4 9350e CPU running at 2 GHz.
We know what this machine needs to be able to do and we know that it doesn’t need to be a powerhouse to do its job. In fact, we’d specifically like to avoid 100 W+ processors because we don’t want to have to cool them. The 9350e is one of AMD’s “Energy Efficient” models with a 65 W TDP.
Even still, the chip boasts 2 MB total L2 cache, 2 MB shared L3 cache, and a 1.8 GHz HyperTransport link—it’s certainly no slouch, even if it isn’t at the top of AMD’s current lineup.
Motherboard: MSI Media Live DIVA (MS-7411)
Here’s the real soul of Maui. Don’t laugh—the board centers on AMD’s old, yet venerable, 780G chipset. It boasts an AM2+ socket interface, which is able to take any Athlon 64 X2 or Phenom processor, save the Phenom X4 9950 BE (also, Phenom II has not yet been added to the board’s compatibility list). But as mentioned, you’ll want to pay close attention to balancing performance with low power in order to keep heat and noise at a minimum.
Four DDR2 memory slots take up to 8 GB of memory running at speeds as high as 800 MHz. Again, we’re not shooting for the performance crown here. We simply want enough performance for smoother video playback and respectable encoding.
MSI does include one PCI Express x16 slot for graphics upgrades, but we’re going to stick with the integrated Radeon HD 3200-series GPU built into AMD’s northbridge. Were it relying on system memory, the built-in circuitry might not be quick enough to deliver the performance we’re counting on. However, the board boasts 128 MB of Side-Port memory to augment the shared storage. And, suiting it to a living room existence, MSI exposes HDMI, VGA, and component outputs.
We would have frankly preferred DVI to the VGA connector, but we have to imagine that HDMI is the really the most relevant interface in a modern configuration.
The rest of the board’s connectivity is standard PC fare—three PCI Express x1 slots, four SATA 3 Gb/s ports with RAID 0/1/10 support, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, FireWire, and an eight-channel Realtek audio codec. There’s one other feature that’s a little more special than the others, though: the PCI Express x4 slot behind one of the x1 slots. That connector is what lets you drop in the MS-4140 sound card. More on that in a second.
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You seem to have missed the big reason for a media centre (deliberately no capitals as I use MythTV on Linux): it's the network. I have a flat screen TV or computer in almost every room of the house, including wireless laptop access in the garden. That means that anything anyone in the family watches or records from the TV, together with our entire collection of music and movies, is available anywhere at any time with no reason to faff about with physical media. Sure, I don't usually want to watch a movie in the kitchen. But it's great a great place to catch up on yesterday's ski racing, or for my kids to watch their favourite bits from an old DVD.
You can't get that level of universal access with separate dedicated components in each room - at least in the UK.
Well said aahjnnot!
Also, there was no mention of the other options - 9300 based MB with C2D 5200, cheaper and plays BluRay perfectly. Or G45 based board, finally Intel does proper IGP.
The price point of the HTPC still does not make sense. You still get a better bang-4-buck with a second hand XBOX1 installed with XBMC.
It is such a shame that the video capabilities of the current generation of consoles is so under utilised.
It's still a long way until you have it all in one spot avaliable to regular customers, i mean with a single remote that can control everything (without having a keyboard at all). People of today barely know what to buy. They have no clue what a graphic card is or what model does what nore how to handle or install them properly. Hardware or software wise All this have to be done avaliable in a extremely simple way. Detailed information "what the product is capable of" to the customer in a very simple way of telling. But still not leaving the one that know what components they want out.
I think i could do all this, but i dont work for any of these companies and i dont know english to well so i guess this is not what i was suppose to do.
I think it's about time that there was another look at the htpc.
How ever it does cost and I feel cannot be done on a budget in order to get the full use of it. To get full use of bluray that sound card used doesnt support full bluray sound, I use a ASUS Xonar for this and it's great I get my sound and video through one cable to my av receiver, this is were the market needts to be going. I have got full bluray play back at 1080p and 96khz sound. also plugins are easy to add into media center to allow games & email or nearly anything else you want to be used from the media center.
I have been using Mythtv since 2001. My current setup with 3 DVB tuners, and a diskless and fanless front since 2004. It still looks like windows media centre is lagging behind.
The HTPC age has been upon me for the last 8 years.
Hello Chris,
Although for the most part a great review, I think you miss the essence of this platform, namely it's great audio quality combined with great onboard video quality. You say that you have used your own multi-channel receiver connected to the motherboard’s S/PDIF output. If you use this great motherboard like this, it's just another great motherboard with a few plusses.
To name one, the 780M chipset comes with an additional 128MB side-port memory. This allows the ATI Radeon HD 3200 access to its own graphics memory, instead of sharing memory with the processor, making the configuration more efficient and strips away loading access to the processor’s memory bus which will have a positive effect on playback of 1080p content.
The very, very special thing of this board are the audio capabilities. There are effectively 3 different audio codec's on this board. ATI for audio over HDMI. Realtek for the SPDIF (that you have used) and D2Audio for the analog amp or pre amp card. This last one makes the board special and is the reason you want to buy this board. On the board you will find the DAE-3 Digital Amplifier chip from D2Audio (recently taken over by Intersil).
D2Audio is a very well known chipmaker in the audio space; they make high quality class D digital amplifiers for folks like B&W, Polk, Control 4, Phasetech, Denon, Marantz, etc. This code provides much higher audio quality than traditional PC audio. Signal to Noise Ratio is 105dB or higher, Total Harmonic Distortion is 0.1% or lower. This is similar to fairly expensive Mainstream Amplifiers.
D2Audio specializes in Class-D amplifiers that achieve remarkable 93% power efficiency. This means that for every 100W of power delivered to the speakers, less than 7W is dissipated by the amplifier. Because of the way audio power is distributed between channels, the overall amplifier thermal dissipation inside the enclosure will typically be below 20W. This compares with the 40% to 50% efficiency of Class-A/B amplifiers which dissipate as much power inside the enclosure as they deliver to the speakers. That's why receivers are so heavy (a very huge cooling block and powerful PSU).
The 5-channel amplifier with a 100W peak power (at 8Ω or 200W at 4Ω) per channel can draw as much as 500W peak alone from the typical 300W ATX power supply. If such a high power were drawn from the supply in an uncontrolled way, the CPU voltages could not be maintained at correct levels and the system would crash. Having a digital media platform crash every time a loud sequence is played in a movie or game is obviously unacceptable. Fortunately, D2Audio developed real-time power monitoring and management firmware that runs on the embedded DAE-3 DSP to carefully monitor and control the power draw from the ATX power supply. With careful supply loading and local power storage, the system is able to meet the 500W peak amplifier demands delivering outstanding audio, while also protecting the CPU operating voltages.
If may do a suggestion, pull your speaker cables out of your receiver, including your sub and hook them up to the 5.1 AMP card that came with the board. I think you will be suprised.
I have used the AMD Maui platform now for almost two months. Especially with Windows 7 it gave an awesome experience. I have sold my HD satelite receiver, my Pioneer receiver and DVD player. I have now just one-box-fit-all HTPC. My build can be found at www.htpcplus.com
Nice article; but would have been nice to see ClearQAM performance and/or use with two 650s All-wonder cards.
I'm sorry but I really cannot see the point in this article. All of this technology has been around for years! On the Windows platform, MCE 2004/2005 offered all this functionality in a stable, easy to use package years ago; Vista and 7 offer a few minor tweaks, but nothing substantially new. Also MythTV has been doing this for much longer.
The only really interesting thing about the article was the sound card, but you brushed that aside.
Also, don't forget standby mode. There is no "booting" of the PC to watch TV etc. It is either on standby, or on all the time. My (Vista) HTPC hasn't been rebooted for weeks.
a real eye opener for a newbie in the UK. have wanted home theatre but without the Receiver. I new there was a way.
Quick question though. I have a Virgin Media cable box in the UK which is connected via Scart to my TV. Are you saying I just pull the Coax out the back of it and bang it in the TV card? then HDMI or Component into TV?
many thanks and hope to hear from you..
atm
Just a note of warning, Windows 7 and TV pack have some serious bugs for Australian users which aren't present in Vista and XPMCE prior the TV changes. While MS Media Centre is comparitively easier to set up and is arguably "prettier", offerings such as Media Portal and MythTV (although more involved to configure and perhaps less tuner support in the case of MythTV)at least offer a generally more stable offering.
Two Words.... Good Laptop... Just hook your laptop to you TV and there you go. Wireless to your network attached storage device for all the movies you could ever want. Access it any where in the house. PUt in a sling box and what them anywhere. you don't have to spend thousands to do these things or even reinvent the wheel.
I have used media portal for over 2 years now and there is nothing better.
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/
& with custom skins like monochrome....
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/ [...] ted-29566/
visually it is a winner!