Thursday 3 January 2013

My New HTPC

My first Home Theatre PC was made from scrounged components, but satisfied of the concept I decided to upgrade.  The new machine consists of:
Gigabyte GZ-M1 Black, Mini Tower Case
Core i3 Ivy Bridge 3220 3.30GHz Processor
ASRock Z77M Intel LGA Motherboard
Seasonic 430W Power Supply
2xKingston HyperX Blu 2GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory
Lite-On iHAS324 Super All Write 24x DVD Writer
Intel 60GB SATA3 SSD
Old 500 GB HDD 
Wireless (USB dongle) Logitech mini keyboard/mouse pad
Wireless internal ethernet card from Dick Smith
Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal

The Ivy Bridge setup is doing a great job of audio/visuals.  The signal goes to a Marantz receiver, and thence to tv and speakers.  So far, I'm happy running off regular desktop (Rhythmbox for music, Totem for video files, VLC for DVDs).  One disadvantage of the mini-tower case is that the case fan is far from silent.  It's possible I can do without it (the processor is hardly ticking over); I'll get around to doing some temperature tests at some point.  Alternatively, the motherboard has a connector for a four-pin, speed controlled fan, if I can find one.  And I'll need some extra storage soon.

We don't even have the television connected to an antenna anymore :)

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