I'm trying to build a small Linux media centre and I'm looking for some advice on the best motherboard/chip combination. I'm trying to do this as low cost as possible (since I'm only going to be using it to run XBMC on Ubuntu). Here's what I'm looking for: 1. Intel or AMD - not bothered which 2. Small form factor (I guess Mini-ITX is the most cost effective) 3. HDMI output 4. Gigabit ethernet 6. Ideally integrated graphics that can hardware decode 1080p and output over HDMI. 7. Happy with USB 2.0 only. 3.0 would be a bonus. Does anything like this exist? Many thanks for any help people can give. FieldDoc
Mini-ITX is not very cost effective. You get much more for your money with Micro-ATX. If you don't need SATA 6Gbit/s, you can get a H61 board. There's not much difference between boards, just get the cheapest one that has all the features you need. I have no idea if the Intel HD 2000 graphics in a G530 or G620 is powerful enough for 1080p playback, but if you want better graphics, you need to get an i3 3225, which isn't exactly a budget part.
Hate to say this, but... Raspberry Pi? A friend of mine uses his as a media PC, It plays HD content really well too. Something like a USB HDD will do the trick for storage as well. Just a thought, It might end up being cheaper than you first expected.
If you have an external sound decoder, go for the RPi, if you do not have one it can run into problems decoding DTS and playing fullHD files at the same time.
Thanks for the suggestions for the RPi. I actually own two of them! One powers my sonos system and the other currently runs XBMC. It's OK but the menus are slow and clunky and there are issues with it. I really want a more powerful machine that I can use as a file server (perhaps with SnapRAID and Samba) as well as stream ripper Blu-rays over HDMI. I've been thinking about the Celeron G530 and this MSI motherboard but I'm worried whether it's up to the job...