AMD Upgraded HTPC Nettop

AMD Upgraded HTPC Nettop
Component Product Name Price
CPU + Mobo ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe (AMD E-350) $204
Memory Patriot 4GB (2x2GB) PSD34G1333K $40
Case + PSU Lian Li PC-Q09B + 110W PSU $150
Storage Samsung SpinPoint MT2 HM100UI 1TB 5400RPM $94
Optical Drive Sony Optiarc BC-5500H-01 BR-ROM/DVD-ROM $90
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit $100
Extra Software CyberLink PowerDVD 11 Ultra $100
Total Price $778

Our final nettop build is the AMD HTPC setup, which adds quite a few extra features into the mix. We’ve also upgraded the case to a more expensive option, so you can easily skip that if you prefer to keep costs down. Starting with the motherboard and APU, once again we’re using the AMD E-350, but this time we’ve selected the ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe. This is the most feature-rich Zacate mini-ITX board currently available. It features USB3 ports, an eSATA port, onboard wireless-N networking, DVI and HDMI ports, and an S/PDIF out jack. It’s also passively cooled by a massive heatsink, so it generates no fan noise. Unfortunately, all those extra features bump the price of the motherboard + APU up to $204, nearly $100 more than the ASRock E-350 board! We’ve used the same 4GB memory kit as the Intel system on the previous page, though E-350 is fast enough that the extra memory might prove more useful.

The case is another area where we’ve spent a large chunk of the budget. Lian Li builds beautiful cases, and the PC-Q09B is no exception. It’s well built and durable, but it’s also quite expensive. This specific case is attractive because it includes an external power brick, excellent ventilation, an anti-vibration kit for the hard drive, and comes with a slim optical drive adapter if you want to include a slim optical drive. We’ll be using a Blu-ray drive, so that’s a nice extra. Unlike the Antec cases, the Lian Li only supports a single 2.5” storage drive.

Since we’re building an HTPC, capacity wins out over performance this time, and we’ve selected the Samsung SpinPoint MT2 1TB drive. You can rip and save hundreds of hours of video to the drive, and this AMD solution has more than sufficient muscle to play all of your HD videos smoothly, so why not? Note that this is a non-standard 2.5” disk that’s 12.5mm thick, so it won’t fit in many laptops, but it works fine in mini-ITX cases. It was on sale at Newegg for just $80 a couple weeks ago, but now the cheapest price we can find is $94. If you’re willing to sacrifice capacity for speed, the largest 7200RPM 2.5” hard drives weigh in at 750GB, and you can currently find the Seagate ST9750420AS on sale for $90. Rounding out the package, we’ve again got the Sony BD-ROM and CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra adding $190 to the total cost.

This is obviously not a nettop designed around keeping costs down, but it’s more a statement of style and added features. At a total price of $778, many of you are probably already laughing, but keep in mind all the features you’re getting. This system provides plenty of storage and near-silent operation, two key elements of a good HTPC. If you want to go with the same case and components as the ION setup, you can get the cost down to $674, or you can skip WiFi and USB3 and just use the ASRock E-350 board. Then you’re looking at $580, or $390 without Blu-ray support—except we’ve already covered that option.

Intel Upgraded HTPC Nettop One Final Option and Closing Thoughts
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  • prismatics - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    That Lian-Li case is $50 more than you have it listed. Is this a mistake or did Newegg change the price since you setup the link?
  • JarredWalton - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    Sorry, error in the table. I had the wrong labels on the Case + PSU and Storage lines (see first comment), and when I swapped the content around to fix that I missed the pricing information. So the table listed the HDD as $150 and the case as $94 when it was the other way around.
  • obarthel - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    I enjoyed reading your article, especially since I'll be building a couple or more of those. The article was somewhat informative, but I would have preferred if you'd done a few things differently

    - review individual components, instead of randomly-matched systems. There's no specific reason to use any one case with any one MB, so why complicate matters ?
    - take advantage of that to be more thorough about each component's characteristics. ie, the Antec ISK 100 is **NOT** VESA-mountable, not even with an extra accessory, even though it looks like it could (should ?) be. Also, it's not always clear how big the cases are, whether they have internal vs external PSUs...
    - or, if you insist on the "whole system" approach, include a handful of worthy barebones, such as the Asus S1-AT5NM10E, Shuttle XS35/35GT, or the various Zotac models.

    In the end, I'd have liked a more conventional "System guide" approach, with maybe 3 use cases:
    - HTPC: very quiet, HDMI/DVI, good sound, internal optical drive, IR remote, Linux
    - NAS/Torrent server: 3.5" HD (or two), Linux
    - Desktop Replacement: VESA-mounted, Bluetooth
    - All of the Above.
    + a recommendation for a barebones PC instead of homebrew.

    Right now, I'm thinking about an Asus S1-AT5NM10E for my server (Case looks OK, has all the features I need and more, price seems unbeatable), and an Asus E-350 for my Desktop Replacement. Still looking for a VESA-mountable case with no optical disc to go with it.
  • hnzw rui - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    >Still looking for a VESA-mountable case with no optical disc to go with it.

    Have you considered the Mini-Box M350? Caveat, you'd need to buy a PicoPSU but even the lowest model should be more than enough.
  • obarthel - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    Thanks, that looks like what I'd want. I'm a bit confused about what I need in terms of PSU and adapter... and bothered by the price ! The case itself is very cheap and looks well designed, though.
  • DanNeely - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    Most (all?) pico PSU sellers list what each model needs as an AC brick, and sell bricks that work with the picoPSUs they sell. The cheaper models tend to be very picky, while the higher end ones can use almost anything. The difference is between taking 12V in and just making 3.3/5V, and taking 19V (common laptop brick) or car DC (varies significantly) and making all 3 voltages.
  • 457R4LDR34DKN07 - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    This was a decent guide and made me consider building a less power consuming box for my ceton infiniTV4. I could only find 1 case designed for mini itx and a expansion slot the LUXA2 LM100. It might be worth waiting for a i5 2405S.
  • monkeyman1133 - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    IMO, you should do a more apples-to-apples comparison across the different systems. Just browsing through quickly, my first reaction to the "AMD Upgraded nettop" is $778 for a nettop?? F that. But of course its a very misleading for a number of reasons.

    First is the unequal software costs included. Are you guys under pressure to include software costs in the price summary? OS cost is once thing, however, I think it makes more sense to exclude it from the "base cost" just like it is in the regular System Builder guides. What is worse and especially confusing, IMO, is when you include the cost for dvd/bluray playback software to only some systems.

    Another minor point is that the HDD/storage options and thus cost vary significantly from system to system. Storage options can really be chosen independently of the system, so not keeping this constant across the systems also really skews the comparison.
  • JarredWalton - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    We cover this discrepancy in the text on every page. For example, on the ION system: "Using the same case and components, the difference in motherboard choice makes this platform $10 more than the basic AMD E-350 setup, or $37 more than the stock Atom configuration."

    Really the motherboard/CPU and RAM are the only item that necessarily varies between builds -- well, that and I'd be very hesitant to try a shorter ITX case on the SNB system on the final page without confirming it will fit. We felt it would be more interesting to have multiple case options showing what's out there, discussing storage tradeoffs, etc.

    As for the software, there are limitations with most (all?) bundled Blu-ray software packages, and if you want the full HD experience you'd need to purchase additional playback software. We again make this clear in the text.

    Will some people just look at the bottom line and then leave? Perhaps, but then they're no longer "readers" of our site, are they? If all someone wants to do is look at a table or a chart and call it good (or bad), we can't really stop that and such a person is ultimately missing out on information that is readily available.
  • iuqiddis - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link

    Another software option would be to get a DVDFab decrypting software for blu-ray playback. I've never come across a disc that it failed to decrypt. It runs as a driver; you can just open the bluray disc with VLC to view them.

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