I want a living room PC with the common criteria of being an HDMI-source, web-browsing, local network game streaming and being as close to silent as possible.
Goals:
Quiet! - Super important for this to either be passive or close to it.
Compact - mATX or ITX
Reasonably powered - I have a big computer elsewhere, so Steam Streaming or NDI to do the heavy lifting elsewhere
Optional: Expansion Slot - For an Intensity Pro that would make my life a little easier
Core Components:
This is just an idea, as a general “about this much PC”:
Part
Name
Note
CPU
8700G
Probably overkill
RAM
GSkill Flare X5
2x 16G, 6000 MHz
Mobo
Asrock B850i Lightning Wifi
ITX
SSD
Crucial T700
1TB
Add-In
BMD Intensity Pro
I/O card
Comes out to about 1250€
Ideas:
Passive: Streacom ST-FC5B
HDPlex or Streacom Flex internal PSU, PCI-slot, all contained, passively cooled! A box-checker!
I don’t think I can tell the difference between passively cooled and large slow fans in a box behind the TV.
One thing to consider which might matter, or might not, is if your home theatre is a floating ground setup, it’s easy to cause it to be grounded by plugging a PC in with a normal HDMI cable.
Well, here is something that might be an even better offer for your use case:
However, you do want to consider putting Linux on that thing as Windows 11 takes up like half the available resources, and no you will not have a PCI slot. Apart from that, I see few downsides for like 15% of what it would have cost you otherwise.
That would be a vote for an open-frame case, less turbulence for the air meaning less noise.
While that stick specifically is a bit suspect to me, using some industrial control-box is an idea to consider for sure.
Another idea would be some NDI-endpoint and stream everything in from elsewhere, which would create a need for USB-over-TCP or similar.
About 1 meter/4ft from the prime watching/listening spot.
What I like about that particular stick, is that it is designed to plug into a TV with the HDMI port and just “hang” from it which allows for quite a few interesting concealing options.
Yes, it is from a lesser known Chinese manufacturer. I have heard good things about this particular brand in Europe, but I can understand you would want to go with a better known brand. The idea was to inspire, feel free to switch out to whatever.
I have purchased two of one of their similar products, the Quieter 4C. The device was great. Its small, fanless, and capable of single usb cable operation (power, display, and usb all over the single cable without any other cables attached). They got hot enough that if I held one in my hand for a couple of seconds then it would eventually hurt but it takes a couple of seconds to reach that point so you don’t have to worry about humans/pets accidentally burning themselves. I went with the 4C instead of the “PC stick” form factor because one HDMI port has already failed on my TV from the dangling chromecast ultra.
The first one I got is working great as a wii emulation device for my parents, and I didn’t notice any coil whine. The 2nd one I got unfortunately had coil whine after you power off the machine (unplugged = no whine, plugged in but not yet turned on = no whine, running = no whine, turning it off after it had been running = whine) so I had to return it, but I like the device enough that I check their site ~monthly to see if a new model has been released since I was planning on seeing if the whine is fixed in their next model. Unfortunately, with the tariff situation, I doubt their next model will be reasonably priced where I live.
Steam seems to work perfectly fine between my big machine and Steamdeck.
Have to admit, I never checked if the Nvidia-card did anything during those sessions.
Plastic ain’t a good heat conductor, so mesh on all sides it is.
Pretty easy to do with 3d printing: Just disable top & bottom layers. Infill does the rest.
