HTPC Build Help

[dirtyoodus]

Hi Guys,

After building one for the parents im now building my own HTPC. what do you think of the below? Any suggestions of better parts for similar money etc welcome?

Btw - Not using for gaming and Dont need bluray as ps3 will be linked to same TV

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L G41
Graphics card - Sapphire HD4670 512MB PCI E Ultimate*
Processor - Intel Q6600
Sound card - SpeedLink SL-8871-SRD-71
RAM - 4gb (2X2gb) Corsair-TwinX
Hard Drives - 3 x 1tb samsung F3s
Optical Drive - Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD±RW DL Internal SATA 3 Bezel Drive
Case - Suggestions please Ive been looking at a few of the antec cases. Ideally would like it to have space for my three drives. possibly http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140996
PSU - depending on the case...
Cooling - ???

Any suggestions / comments welcome.

Thanks in advance

[crazyfool]

Looks kinda overkill tbh...I would go with an amd setup, maybe a 785g board and a low powered phenom. Antec fusion is probably the best htpc case in terms of price/performance but the case you said above is a good case. For the psu I would go for a corsair.

[scaryjim]

I'm intrigued: what exactly will this be used for if not bluray playback or light gaming? Does the PS3 not play DVDs as well? Or is it just for streaming (iplayer / youtube)?

[dirtyoodus]

yeah thought it might be a bit over kill

Thanks will look into AMD and the corsair fans.

[dirtyoodus]

I'm intrigued: what exactly will this be used for if not bluray playback or light gaming? Does the PS3 not play DVDs as well? Or is it just for streaming (iplayer / youtube)?

will be used for playing my movies (alot of 1080p mkv rips), streaming, maybe abit of photoshop work but not alot. yep PS3 does play DVDs aswel... im just getting the drive more for the purposes of burning CDs etc.

Thanks

[arthurleung]

will be used for playing my movies (alot of 1080p mkv rips), streaming, maybe abit of photoshop work but not alot. yep PS3 does play DVDs aswel... im just getting the drive more for the purposes of burning CDs etc.

Thanks

Just get a 785G or even a second hand board, slap in an AMD X4 620, 2GB ram and you're sorted.
Having a dedicated graphics card there is pointless if you don't game. Mine runs perfectly fine even doing 1080p encoding. 40% slower than my Q9550 overclocked but use only 30% as much electricity.

[scaryjim]

In that case I definitely wouldn't bother with a 4670 or a Quad core. Never has the word "overkill" been more appropriate

On the Intel side I'd look at a Celeron E3200 + HD4350 on a decent budget mobo.

On the AMD front, I don't think sideport would make a huge difference to your experience so something like this MSI AM2+ board would do nicely - you could couple it with an Athlon II X2 but as a wildcard you might want to consider this Athlon 5000+ - it's an AM2+ Phenom II derived CPU which some people have successfully unlocked to a quad core with L3 cache!

[dirtyoodus]

thanks guys appreciate your help

[Jay]

My HTPC is as Following

AM2 X2 3800+
2GB Corsair Ram
80GB Samsung HDD (Quiet!)
GForce8400 Passive Graphics Card
X-Fi
500W Jantec PSU with 120mm fan
Blu-ray Drive
and the key to this setup a t-balancer fan controller (no fans need to spin at all for xvid / DVDs! so its almost silent!)

The above setup is fine for me and plays all video fine.

I use this case

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Silve...-in-black-RoHS