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[thurston]

Hey all- It's been a few years since I built my last computer and since it is now dedicated to music/recording and with a new house and new version of MC, I'd like to put together another strictly for media.  I could really use some of your expertise since I don't know what's good out there these days.  Here's what I'm looking to build and trying to stick to a $500 Newegg budget if possible:

CPU/motherboard/Video card - This is where I could really use some help.  Not sure what is required to run HD video and CD quality music smoothly through MC14.
RAM - 4G, unsure of type
Case & Fans - Again I could use some help here.  I was thinking MicroATX, something relatively quiet, but since I'm making a media closet, space & noise really isn't much of an issue.

Hard Drives - I have a few SATA drives I plan to use, should be enough for now(~1TB).  Although I might also consider an SSD if recommended.
Monitor - I have a Panasonic 42" 1080P Plasma with an available HDMI input
Sound Speakers - I have a good PCI soundcard I'll use with digital out to a receiver w/ surround sound.
Interface - Have RF remote & keyboard, just needs a USB connection

Again any good advice would really be appreciated.  I know a lot of you guys have been in this area for a long time.  Thanks!

[tcman41]

I just put together a couple of systems, I don't use JRiver to play the media but the concepts are the same.

CPU - For single purpose events like playing a single blu-ray movie at a time, ghz is way more important than the number of cores.

Video Card - I am playing movies thru a Nvidia onboard 9400 and they play fine, just a dropped frame (stutter) on a very rare occasion, higher end card would be better I am sure

Memory - 4gb would be the minimum, though memory once again isnt that big of an issue, the 1st two items make the big difference

Case - I have a micro case and love it, if it is going to be sitting by a HDTV or speakers, make sure you build it quiet.

Hard Drives - Solid state drives will offer you no real advantages in playing media over regular drives.

If you are serving your movies over a network, make sure that you are running 1GB ethernet or above, 10/100 isnt going to cut it.


These are my opinions only, hope something helps, do your research and ask others before building your system.

TC 

[HiFiTubes]

I have used the mini-ITX boards for my last few builds.

The onboard HD3200 (ATI) and now the Zotac ION both have done 1080P for me well.

If you are looking to do video, of course you are looking at a more powerful machine and you can run a single core ATOM. But that's obvious. Shuttle has cases for full size PCI cards that are still small. I'd recommend a card with Optical out to avoid ground loop issues, but that's no guarantee really.

If you just want to use a board w/ onboard Toslink and/or Coax digital output you can find boards with HD4200 and HD3200 and similar Nvidia GPUs......but dedicated cards are always nice.

I used a riser card to stuff a Lynx AES16-E into an OrigenAE M10 on this build....

[imugli]

I've just built a Mini-ITX system using an Atom330 / nVidia Ion board and Antec ISK300-65 case and it's great. Board has 1 * PCIE slot and the case has a low profile card slot (perfect for my Hauppauge 200 DVBT Card).

It's only running 1.6ghz but others have clocked to 2ghz reliably.

4gb DDR3 Ram and a 30gb SSD and she purrs :-)

[HiFiTubes]

I've just built a Mini-ITX system using an Atom330 / nVidia Ion board and Antec ISK300-65 case and it's great. Board has 1 * PCIE slot and the case has a low profile card slot (perfect for my Hauppauge 200 DVBT Card).

It's only running 1.6ghz but others have clocked to 2ghz reliably.

4gb DDR3 Ram and a 30gb SSD and she purrs :-)

I think we have the same ION-L-E board. I have two 8dba fans in there but not on the cpu....are you using cooling on your cpu directly?

[imugli]

I think we have the same ION-L-E board. I have two 8dba fans in there but not on the cpu....are you using cooling on your cpu directly?

I'm actually running the Asus AT3IONT-I, which comes with a (relatively) large heatsink on it, so haven't needed a cpu fan at this stage.

Have been monitoring using RealTemp because I've read it can be an issue but it seems the Asus heatsink is doing the job nicely without it. And I'm only using 1*8cm fan on the case at mid speed of three. Haven't looked in a couple of days, so will have to do so again today at some stage.

I made sure as best as possible to keep the cables well clear of the heatsink though, just to get as much airflow as possible happening around it. Hard in a miniITX case but hey, you gotta try :-)