thoroughly confused :hdav card vs radeon 5xxx series?

[thevortex]

As you yourself said further down, HTPC will be purely for movies and I am not planning on an Asus HDAV as I am happy with the AVR I have.

Of course when it comes to music, what you say sounds good.

Cheers

Are you planning on using any remote control system with the PC, Venkat? I would really recommend one. As otherwise it can get pretty tedious.

 

[venkatcr]

I am not too sure. Personally I don't like remote controls. For anything beyond a volume control, I think they are too tedious and boring and require a number of steps for a simple task. Being used to Windows for so long, I will attempt a wireless keyboard and mouse for some time. If I find that tedious, I will certainly look for a remote. I am also seeing if I can get a small 7 inch touch screen that I can place near where I sit and connect that physically to the system.

Cheers

 

[corElement]

I am not too sure. Personally I don't like remote controls. For anything beyond a volume control, I think they are too tedious and boring and require a number of steps for a simple task. Being used to Windows for so long, I will attempt a wireless keyboard and mouse for some time. If I find that tedious, I will certainly look for a remote. I am also seeing if I can get a small 7 inch touch screen that I can place near where I sit and connect that physically to the system.

Cheers

I agree,

volume
mute
pause
play
shutdown

5 things, no more.

hmm maybe I should invent it and market it!

 

[spirovious]

I use a PC remote which works well for all the purpose.Its is fast with wireless mouce too.

 

[thevortex]

I am not too sure. Personally I don't like remote controls. For anything beyond a volume control, I think they are too tedious and boring and require a number of steps for a simple task. Being used to Windows for so long, I will attempt a wireless keyboard and mouse for some time. If I find that tedious, I will certainly look for a remote. I am also seeing if I can get a small 7 inch touch screen that I can place near where I sit and connect that physically to the system.

Cheers

I have been down that route, actually. The wireless keyboard and mouse dont seem to add to the experience. In fact they tend to hamper - in the sense that you are going to have to find spots to fit these two things near your seating position. That can definitely cramp your style.

A proper PC remote control would be a boon to any HTPC config. I have ordered one - lets see when it gets home.

 

[venkatcr]

Today, I trudged again in the oppressive Dubai heat to assemble my HTPC. I first went to a place called Computer Street in Bur Dubai where there were a line of shops in two or three streets. Many of them where wholesale distributors, but mostly they were selling unbranded products from China, Korea, and Vietnam. I did find a few gems such as Lite-On DVD Writer for a just 80DHS. I was very tempted to pick it up, but was a little concerned with the look of the shop. Walking on the streets at around 11 AM was just too much for me, and I decided to go back to air conditioned comfort of Al Ain Plaza.

Based upon my previous trip, I decided to go straight to a shop called 'Cute Computers' on the first floor of Al Ain Plaza. I was again met by a very pleasant and soft spoken sale person called Prashanth. The guy was smart enough to peek into my notebook and realised he has already quoted the lowest and smiled away all my attempts at bargaining. In some cases such as the Blu-Ray player, I insisted on getting a good price as I was lucky enough to walk into a LG showroom this morning.

So what I got was the following:

Top Row - Right to left:

(1) Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H. This is based on AMD's AM3 socket and the 890GX chipset. This can take upto 6 core CPU and has USB 3.0 support. The board comes with a Radeon 4290 graphics chip and has 8 audio out as well as HDMI. Of special interest to me is the guarantee of support for FullHD. The board support ATI Crossfire and I can get into some serious gaming, if needed. More details are available at http://gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3420#ov .

(2) LG's Blu-Ray writer. This was the only Blu-Ray drive available in the whole of Dubai. I came across a dealer who was ready to give me a Pioneer drive. It was both more expensive and he wanted a minimum order for ten units.

Bottom Row - Right to left:

(1) 500GB WD Caviar Blue. This is a SATA at 3 Gb/s, with 16 MB Cache, and 7200 RPM. Though I toyed with a 1TB drive, I thought it was to much in terms of expense, I am sure this is one decision I will regret later.

(2) 4 core AMD Athlon II 635 processor. This has a 2 MB cache and a speed of 2.9GHz. This can be easily overclocked by upto 600Hz. Here again I was tempted by the Phenom II processor, but shied away from the price difference.

(3) A 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM from Kingmax. I have picked up a total of 4 GB.

(4) My favourite - the Radeon 5770 graphics card from Gigabyte. Though I was looking for a Sapphire card, the Gigabyte was cheaper and has the same performance as the Sapphire card. The 5770 supports DirectorX 11 and HD Audio.

Here is the GC standing in all its glory. The bat mobile cover gives it a unbeatable look.

The GC supports two HDI ports, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort.

A close up of the RAM.

I already have a Silverstone HTPC case. All I need now is a power unit that I shall purchase as soon as I reach India.

I do believe I can build a reference level HTPC with these parts.

Cheers

 

[sam9s]

All looks good and congratts.......except the RAM maybe... "Kingmax"???... cant you atleast get a Transcent or a Kingston ????

 

[corElement]

Grats dude.

 

[venkatcr]

All looks good and congratts.......except the RAM maybe... "Kingmax"???... cant you atleast get a Transcent or a Kingston ????

Well I did some research as the dealer was pushing Kingmax as real VFM. According to Tomshardware, Anandtech, and others, in DDR3-1600, unless you are doing some serious gaming and over clocking, all RAM are literally equal in performance.

For example, Thomas Soderstrom of TomsHardware says, 'We didnt see much performance difference between the various DDR3-1600 module sets, regardless of speed or timingsnot even when using an enhanced FSB-2000 to the processor. If we assume that benchmarks are only consistent to plus or minus 0.5%, we could simply state that when it comes to DDR3 memory, the cheaper the better."

Since I was looking at regular performance, I thought I could lay my hands on a 4 GB module, giving slightly larger memory. Kingston and Transcend were nearly double the cost, and the performance were literally the same.

Cheers

 

[iaudio]

Today, I trudged again in the oppressive Dubai heat to assemble my HTPC. I first went to a place called Computer Street in Bur Dubai where there were a line of shops in two or three streets. Many of them where wholesale distributors, but mostly they were selling unbranded products from China, Korea, and Vietnam. I did find a few gems such as Lite-On DVD Writer for a just 80DHS. I was very tempted to pick it up, but was a little concerned with the look of the shop. Walking on the streets at around 11 AM was just too much for me, and I decided to go back to air conditioned comfort of Al Ain Plaza.

Based upon my previous trip, I decided to go straight to a shop called 'Cute Computers' on the first floor of Al Ain Plaza. I was again met by a very pleasant and soft spoken sale person called Prashanth. The guy was smart enough to peek into my notebook and realised he has already quoted the lowest and smiled away all my attempts at bargaining. In some cases such as the Blu-Ray player, I insisted on getting a good price as I was lucky enough to walk into a LG showroom this morning.

So what I got was the following:

Top Row - Right to left:

(1) Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H. This is based on AMD's AM3 socket and the 890GX chipset. This can take upto 6 core CPU and has USB 3.0 support. The board comes with a Radeon 4290 graphics chip and has 8 audio out as well as HDMI. Of special interest to me is the guarantee of support for FullHD. The board support ATI Crossfire and I can get into some serious gaming, if needed. More details are available at GA-890GPA-UD3H (rev. 2.0) - GIGABYTE .

(2) LG's Blu-Ray writer. This was the only Blu-Ray drive available in the whole of Dubai. I came across that was ready to give me a Pioneer drive. It was both more expensive and he wanted a minimum order for ten units.

Bottom Row - Right to left:

(1) 500GB WD Caviar Blue. This is a SATA at 3 Gb/s, with 16 MB Cache, and 7200 RPM. Though I toyed with a 1TB drive, I thought it was to much in terms of expense, I am sure this is one decision I will regret later.

(2) 4 core AMD Athlon II 635 processor. This has a 2 MB cache and a speed of 2.9GHz. This can be easily overclocked by upto 600Hz. Here again I was tempted by the Phenom II processor, but shied away from the price difference.

(3) A 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM from Kingmax. I have picked up a total of 4 GB.

(4) My favourite - the Radeon 5770 graphics card from Gigabyte. Though I was looking for a Sapphire card, the Gigabyte was cheaper and has the same performance as the Sapphire card. The 5770 supports DirectorX 11 and HD Audio.

Here is the GC standing in all its glory. The bat mobile cover gives it a unbeatable look.

The GC supports two HDI ports, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort.

A close up of the RAM.

I already have a Silverstone HTPC case. All I need now is a power unit that I shall purchase as soon as I reach India.

I do believe I can build a reference level HTPC with these parts.

Cheers

Venkat ji, I agree with sam, have not heard of Kingmax. I beleive you should have gone for Corsair or Gskill/transcend/kingston etc.
Anyway the specs seem great, but if you are planning to use this for music I think those fans are gonna make a lot of noise. But 500gb only?

 

[thevortex]

Congrats Venkat. So one more has gone down the HTPC route...

Have you picked up the sound card yet? Or are you looking at a USB DAC?

 

[venkatcr]

Venkat ji, I agree with sam, have not heard of Kingmax. I beleive you should have gone for Corsair or Gskill/transcend/kingston etc.
Anyway the specs seem great, but if you are planning to use this for music I think those fans are gonna make a lot of noise. But 500gb only?

I have already explained about the RAM.

I am not planning to use this for music. For that I already have a LGA 775 based top of the line Asus motherboard as well as a Core2Duo CPU. Once I get my hands on a Asus sound card, that will be used exclusively for music.

This machine is only for HTPC and will contain only the software needed for playing movies. I am not going to load even MS Office or any other irrelevant software that creeps in slowly. Maybe XBMC, and a software to watch still photos.

In terms of HDD, I already have 1.5 TB of external HD, and I plan to go for a RAID system much later. That will have a few TBs. I plan to keep only a few movies on this machine, and clean the system of unwanted media regularly. Excepting for movies I really like that I will hold in my HD, all other movies will be flushed.

All grand plans - let us see what i can do. I have a deadline set by my son to get the HTPC up and running.

Bala, the sound card will come in the other machine.

Cheers

 

[iaudio]

I just missed your post regarding the RAM, sorry.

 

[spirovious]

Congrats & welcome to HTPC family.
You was looking for similar solution for I think since 1yr.
Is that GGW Bluray writer?

We expect a review of BD playback later.

 

[venkatcr]

Is that GGW Bluray writer?

Thanks Spiro. Yes, I have been planning for this for a year. When I looked at the BD83 specs and prices, it did not make sense to get that and a media player. So I thought I will combine a DVD Player, a Blu-Ray player, and a media player into one box. If this delivers DVD with the same excitement as the Oppo 983H, the Oppo will become my CD Player. As I said before, the capabilities of these GPUs are mind boggling. Someone should really look at using a GPU inside a Blu-Ray player. It will thrash all our current scaling and decoding engines.

Now all I need is a two channel amplifier and I am all set for the next couple of years for music and movies. I am also ripping my CDs as if there is no tomorrow.

GGW = Girls Gone Wild? How I wish!! It is more like Venkat gone wild with his money. But then what the hell. As many of you say, we have only one life. So let us have fun.

I shall provide blow by blow account of the HTPC assembly and it performance.

Cheers

 

[spirovious]

GGW = Girls Gone Wild? How I wish!!
Cheers

No No No,not that,I mean this GGW-H20L -
LG Black GGW-H20L Bluray Burner Extra ++++ - eBay (item 110543728888 end time Jun-14-10 18:10:11 PDT)

 

[sam9s]

Well I did some research as the dealer was pushing Kingmax as real VFM. According to Tomshardware, Anandtech, and others, in DDR3-1600, unless you are doing some serious gaming and over clocking, all RAM are literally equal in performance.

Since I was looking at regular performance, I thought I could lay my hands on a 4 GB module, giving slightly larger memory. Kingston and Transcend were nearly double the cost, and the performance were literally the same.
Cheers

Well its just not the speed that counts, but the latency as well, and I am sure RAMs like these must be having a horrible latency, which brings the performance back to avg....even if the speed is higher than the other RAMs with better latency. I could not find any benchmark for Kingmax RAM to get a fair comparision .................. But Anyway what ever suits you best ...

 

[anm]

congrats venkat! :yahoo:

 

[anm]

Venkat - what will you play your ripped music with, if you are not planning to use this pc for music playback?

Also - seems it is very hot there. You can ignore my request for looking around the local market.

Thanks Spiro. Yes, I have been planning for this for a year. When I looked at the BD83 specs and prices, it did not make sense to get that and a media player. So I thought I will combine a DVD Player, a Blu-Ray player, and a media player into one box. If this delivers DVD with the same excitement as the Oppo 983H, the Oppo will become my CD Player. As I said before, the capabilities of these GPUs are mind boggling. Someone should really look at using a GPU inside a Blu-Ray player. It will thrash all our current scaling and decoding engines.

Now all I need is a two channel amplifier and I am all set for the next couple of years for music and movies. I am also ripping my CDs as if there is no tomorrow.

GGW = Girls Gone Wild? How I wish!! It is more like Venkat gone wild with his money. But then what the hell. As many of you say, we have only one life. So let us have fun.

I shall provide blow by blow account of the HTPC assembly and it performance.

Cheers

 

[gobble]

Venkat-Gone-Wild

While you are there, remember to pick a silent cooling solution for the cpu as well. Things are not available here without a premium.

For a slim htpc chassis a CM Gemini II S for example might serve you well. Better than a Scythe Big Shuriken to compare.

Also do post the prices so we know how the deal compares to purchasing the same in India.

Cheers