The Living Room PC - anyone else done it?

[babs]

I'm planning a living room PC to replace the aging consoles, and I just thought I'd throw it out there for those of you who've done it for any advice, maybe learned the hard way.

My plan is a nice Mini-ITX motherboard and case, quiet fans, middle of the line graphics card (1080p @ 60fps solid) and a combination of Xbox pad, wireless kb + mouse and maybe a normal remote.

It's mostly for games, and possibly HTPC duties too. I know blu-ray is either expensive or a pain to get running on a PC, but it's a consideration.

If you've done it, what do you wish you had done, or what didn't you think about until it was up and running. For instance, I know a windows desktop on a TV from a few metres away can be hard to read without pushing the DPI to make things readable.

 

[TdC]

Why use a windows? how about SteamOS? Also, why are you considering Blu-ray, or any optical media? Do you have or rent a lot of DVD/BR disks? In these enligntened times everyone either streams, eg Netflix / HBO / whatever or plays from some file format, eg MKV or whatever format you choose.

 

[caLLous]

I sort of cheated with mine. I already had a PC (with monitor) on a desk in the corner of the room so I just spruced that up (new mobo/cpu/ram) and ran a 10m HDMI cable to the TV. Everything PC-related gets done at the PC and everything HTPC-related goes through Plex to the big screen, controlled by Plex Remote from a Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 or my Note 3. It's not GRRR enough to do games (it probably is on some level but I haven't tried).

 

[babs]

Why use a windows? how about SteamOS? Also, why are you considering Blu-ray, or any optical media? Do you have or rent a lot of DVD/BR disks? In these enligntened times everyone either streams, eg Netflix / HBO / whatever or plays from some file format, eg MKV or whatever format you choose.

It'll be dual boot for sure (probably Mint as I currently do), but until gog.com sorts their Linux support later this year, and the third party devs under Steam, there's still going to be a big proportion of my back catalog that I can't play.

The only reason I mentioned Blu-Ray is that I have a lot of my favourite films on disc. Of course, I use Netflix and other things as much as the next man, but it is still a consideration for me. I've currently got two boxes serving up Plex Media Server, so those can be consolidated either on the new box or with a HP Microserver or some other kind of NAS further down the line.

My current PC would be man enough to do what I want really, but it's in a big tower and there are no mini-itx boards to accept my old AMD chip Something that won't look out of place next to my receiver is what I'm aiming for, so I can play the big backlog I've got in steam/gog, and to play the newer stuff I'd have otherwise got on console.

 

[TdC]

well there is that, re your hardware considerations; a cheap and cheerful i3 Haswell is likely to outperform your AMD re 1080P rendering of movies et al. I don't know about games, but there are gfx cards built specifically for the small form factor, but there are also case manufacturers who make cases that look almost like a HIFI component case, re dimentions and colours.

Nvidia has recently released the Maxwell line of GPU's which are rated for low power consumption and, for example, do not have the fairly extreme cooling requirements that a high performance GPU has while retaining much of the compute power.

 

[MYstIC G]

Amd is Server capable but not enough grunt for anything else IMHO.

 

[JBP|]

I did this. Blu ray isn't really a problem, there are a couple of programs available to use. I use power dvd. and have no issues and as long as the drive is faster than x2 it will kick out 3d without issue.
your main problem will be finding a small enough graphics card to fit in the case. I am limited to 20cm so in this day and age of giant cards you'll need to choose your case carefully.

 

[caLLous]

You won't have a problem finding a graphics card nowadays, this one is only 155mm long.

 

[JBP|]

Also I would add dont worry about 4ķ just yet you probably want to wait hdmi 2.0 is more widely available

 

[leggy]

Have you decided on a spec yet babs mclovington?

 

[babs]

Nearly. So far it's this - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3teIN

 

[leggy]

Nearly. So far it's this - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3teIN

Nice one looks close to my list (which is on old fashioned paper).

the only difference is that I've gone for an NVIDIA card and a 600W supply. Why did you chose a Radeon out of curiosity?

 

[leggy]

I really like that site though, nice find.

 

[babs]

I don't need anything like 600w, power consumption now is way lower than a few years ago.

I normally go for nvidia too, but apparently that 270x is a great card for the money. The new CustomPC magazine is out today I think, so I'll have a gander at the guide in there.

 

[Scouse]

I know a windows desktop on a TV from a few metres away can be hard to read without pushing the DPI to make things readable.

Looks fine on my 42" telly in 1920x1080 from ~3m away.

Dunno why people would dual-boot Steam OS - if you've got windows you can just boot your steam client into big picture mode and use it like that - if you must.

Normal windows + steam + downloading torrents (why have blue-ray support) for the win.

I've done away with sky/virgin TV packages completely and don't subscribe to anything else...

 

[leggy]

I'm seriously on the verge of caving here and shelling out the 600-700 quid for a new rig. I just don't want to pay for a 1080p TV at the same time ... mine is still a good ol 720p 32".

 

[babs]

Get that next week ;-)

Apparently if I finish the patio this weekend I can order it, good times.

After the back breaking times :-(

 

[dysfunction]

Are you sure you don't need more power? 400w seems to be on the low side. I would tend to go for around 600w.

The new Radeons are a bit power hungry.

Also if you need more later means buying a new PSU.

The Cyberpower custom pc website seems to indicate that you will need more power.

 

[babs]

Tbh I'll probably go for something a bit more when I come to build it, that one's in there because I already have it

 

[leggy]

I'm really craving some intelligent MP action. I really hate playing on xbox live these days

 

[caLLous]

I plugged my PC (i7 3770k and HD-7970 3gb, both slightly overclocked) into one of those power meters and I couldn't get it to go over 320W iirc. I was using 100% of the GPU as well...

 

[Madmaxx]

Nearly. So far it's this - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3teIN

I like it, I'm looking at similar builds with a SSD inside.

 

[DaGaffer]

This is supposed to be pretty good as a living room device:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-BOXD5...O-DIMM/dp/B00HP1C8S4/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

 

[babs]

This is pretty much my final shopping basket... (except I'll probably get it from one supplier)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570S 2.9GHz Quad-Core Processor (£139.70 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus H81I-PLUS Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£49.38 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£52.30 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£59.95 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.94 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£167.99 @ Novatech)
Case: Antec ISK600 Mini ITX Tower Case (£52.33 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£45.78 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £603.37
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-20 16:03 BST+0100)

 

[leggy]

Sweet... with the GTX760 it's pretty much the same spec as I was considering. Now that you've done all the hard work I'll copy and paste that badboy into my shopping cart.

 

[babs]

Done it, bought it all. Hopefully build and test at the end of the week when it gets delivered

 

[leggy]

Nice job... I look forward to being jealous next week.

 

[babs]

OK, ignore the GTX 460 (the 760 is somewhere in Holland according to tracking) and the lack of cable tidiness, but here's the build!

It might not be its final home, but there's also a shot of it in the TV unit for scale.

 

[Tilda]

Can someone offer me a bit of advice please?

We have a crappy old 32inch screen with 1HDMI and 1VGA port (along with 2x scart and RGB I think).
We plug sky into the HDMI and Xbox360 into the RGB/or scart.

I have lots of movies on my PC (upstairs - wifi) that i'd love to be able to play on TV.

I have a google chrome - but that'll only stream slugglishly due to wifi and the fact that everything has to be in the right format.
I installed plex media server on my pc, but I'm not too sure what should be on the other end - I think I tried it with my xbox360 but it was laggy.

Is there some neat solution that will offer a half decent interface and either stream nicely from upstairs, or has a HDD itself that I can dump all my movies on?
I guess some sort of NAS crossed with a tv PC of sorts?
What OS do you put on a tv pc because Win8 is kinda klunky no? Can you use a phone as a remote or something? Does Apple TV take a HDD input or anything?

Halp!

 

[DaGaffer]

Can someone offer me a bit of advice please?

We have a crappy old 32inch screen with 1HDMI and 1VGA port (along with 2x scart and RGB I think).
We plug sky into the HDMI and Xbox360 into the RGB/or scart.

I have lots of movies on my PC (upstairs - wifi) that i'd love to be able to play on TV.

I have a google chrome - but that'll only stream slugglishly due to wifi and the fact that everything has to be in the right format.
I installed plex media server on my pc, but I'm not too sure what should be on the other end - I think I tried it with my xbox360 but it was laggy.

Is there some neat solution that will offer a half decent interface and either stream nicely from upstairs, or has a HDD itself that I can dump all my movies on?
I guess some sort of NAS crossed with a tv PC of sorts?
What OS do you put on a tv pc because Win8 is kinda klunky no? Can you use a phone as a remote or something? Does Apple TV take a HDD input or anything?

Halp!

Once you've installed the Chromecast extension into Chrome on your PC, you can stream using Plex straight to the Chromecast (there's a little tab that appears in Plex the same way it does on Youtube if you have a Chromecast connected. If you're having issues with Wi-Fi performance, make sure your router has the 2.4GHz band enabled.

If Chromesast still doesn't work, then:

Option 1. Raspberry Pi and OpenElec into the TV and XBMC on your PC. Works fine, and I had this all last year with my 2nd TV.
Option 2. More expensive; PC in the living room. There's a thread about it on here.