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HTPC - Low Noise / Low Power
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HTPC - Low Noise / Low Power

nimdynimdy Member

Can anyone recommend a HTPC (ready-built, or components to do a home build) that is low noise (preferably silent) and low power, but enough power to transcode h264 MKVs for Plex clients?

I currently use a HP Microserver N36L, which is a great little tool, but the fan can be quite noisy, and if I attempt to play something from the server to Plex on a Chromecast or NowTV box the CPU remains constantly at 99% and cant run other basic tasks on it (RDP, torrents etc).

I'd like something that is more set-top-box sized so I can hide it in the TV unit. At the moment I've got the Microserver sitting in the floor next to the tv unit.

I've seen Mini-ITX and Atom devices, which will be great for low noise and electrical power, but will probably be the same if not worse than the Microserver.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Comments

  • How about a GEN8?

  • nimdynimdy Member

    @TarZZ92 said:
    How about a GEN8?

    Was thinking of avoiding the home server form factor and going for something smaller.

    Anyone have any experiences of the 'Intel Next Unit of Computing' devices?

  • VPNshVPNsh Member, Host Rep

    @nimdy I've got an i5 Intel NUC and it's practically silent. Good performance running Plexon UUbuntu and had no issues pushing content to my Chromecast (other than my projectors inbuilt audio - but that's not a NUC issue).

    Really nice and quick to work on too. I have mine mounted to the VESA Mount on an IPS 27" monitor :)

  • NUC'> @nimdy said:

    Anyone have any experiences of the 'Intel Next Unit of Computing' devices?

    NUC's are pretty good, good performance and fairly cheap.

  • sc754sc754 Member

    I just got a radxa rock for my media stuff. It works pretty nice, if not try a j1800 or j1900 or j2900 celeron / pentium instead

  • BobRBobR Member

    Asrock q1900-itx+M350 enclosure with picoPSU-80 and 60W adapter or asrock q1900dc-itx+an enclosure

  • shovenoseshovenose Member, Host Rep

    I picked up an AsRock J1900 Mini-ITX board a couple days ago.
    -Shitty NIC
    -Doesn't reboot (needs to be cold boot, it won't automatically start itself up again)
    -Doesn't properly support Virtualization??

  • Amd fusion e-450 with fanless power supply? Got that here.

  • nimdynimdy Member

    Thanks for the recommendations guys. I'll have a look though the links and models and see which one suits me best. Don't want to spend too much on it!

  • geekalotgeekalot Member
    edited June 2014

    @nimdy, I don't know if this is out of date, but a few years back the "rage" was to use thin clients (HP Thin Clients in particular) ... they make for excellent appliances for firewall/routers, HTPC, NAS, surveillance DVRs, spam filter/mail servers, SIP "filter," and much much more (you can tweak it by adding more memory and an SSD inside the case to give it more disk capacity).



    Silent, fast, low power consumption, low heat generation, can run Linux or Windows, and runs forever. I still have a few doing various tasks.

  • nimdynimdy Member

    I'll have to have a look around for that @geekalot. Can they do hardware decoding of 720/1080 media though?

    I've seen this on the e user website - http://m.ebuyer.com/613262 Do you think this might suit my needs? It's cheaper than the NUC and has ram and hdd already with it (although I could upgrade them).

    I think the J1900 is one of the newer Celerons (Haswell?), I wonder if it's up to the job of transcoding my media. The CPU benchmark site says this scores over twice as much as my old N36L processor, but the NUC's 4010U processor scores twice that! - http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2131&cmp[]=124&cmp[]=2012

  • @nimdy, I honestly don't know how well the thin clients would work for the transcoding, but it is a (relatively) inexpensive option that does so much.


    Look at HP T5730 or better.


    Here is an example of a thin client as a NAS storage device that I have used (running Linux + encrypted filesysystem though) that works very well.

  • ben78ben78 Member

    an i3 or i5 with a picoPSU could be silent, and low on watts.. with enough power to encode video/audio whenever you need!

  • sc754sc754 Member

    You could also try the new amd cpu's like the 5350 athlon. Not sure how it compares for encoding vs the j1900

  • Intel NUC and Gigabyte Brix are good. Zotac Zbox product also recommend.

  • akzakz Member

    I have a Acer Revo and a Zotac both are extremely quiet not sure about power tho but I would recommend either.

  • DerekDerek Member
    edited June 2014

    I just built a small desktop with the Q1900M from ASROCK.

    This thing can handle just about anything I play, 1080p youtube videos, some low graphic games, etc.

    Completely fanless and comes with a lot of features, the only issue I had is the matx version doesn't not include front connectors for USB3.0 and Sata6.0 .:(

    This is the one I would recommend: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157494 since this one includes SATA6.0 - $75.99

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