help building a new home entertainment rig

[muayboran]

Hi Guys,

Please could yer advise me on a the hardware for a new rig, Hopefully would have about £800 to spend, no monitor, keyboard mouse, or speakers needed just the:

Akasa Eclipse-62
psu
graphic card
200 gig hdd,
m/b,
cpu
1 gig ram
dvd, / cd re-writer
floppy drive,

I have thought of this spec, but not sure if it could be improved


Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case 1 £72.95
Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.0 PSU - Black Nickel with Blue LED Fan (CA-013-AK) 1 £39.95
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM £84.95
Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard £104.95
Asus Extreme N6600GT GeForce PCX6600 GT 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) 1 £124.95
Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR PC3200 Ballistix Dual Channel Kit £129.95
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus 200GB ATA-100 8MB Cache £64.95NEC ND3520 16x 16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £38.95
Creative Labs Modem Blaster™ USB - £28.50
OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black £6.50
Subtotal £696.60
Shipping £11.75
VAT £123.97
Total £832.32


Many thanks in advance

muayboran

[Taz]

You're looking at an OEM CPU. Do these come with an HSF? If not, you'll need to factor in a few quid for one. One other suggestion: take a look at the Scan 'Mix-It' weekly bundle offers as they are occasionally fairly decent. I've seen a few case/PSU/motherboard/CPU/RAM combos that save around £50 if purchased separately over the months.

[RDL]

Are you planning on overclocking or not?

[speedy_s]

if it is home entertainment, wouldn't you want it to be discrete and small?
I would recomend the Antec Minute case/Overture or Aria. Overture or Aria will take full size AGP but the minuet won't. But the minuet is VERY SMALL and mould certainly recomend that if you are not playing games and just wacthing DVD's.
You could run 939 processor with MSI rs480mil motherboard.

[muayboran]

yeah if yer mean heatsink fan included, will look at bundle offers.
Am not thinking about overclocking as yet, don't know anything about it.
I thought if I bought Akasa case it would good to work on regarding space, and with the space make it cooler with the fans at front and rear.
plus it's got a decent write up

[RDL]

The Akasa is a great case. I love it. If you're not intending on overclocking then save yourself some money and get some Scan OEM Elixir PC3200. It runs at 3-3-3-8 and only costs £81. With the extra money you could upgrade your CPU to a 3200 or buy something else.

[speedy_s]

yeah if yer mean heatsink fan included, will look at bundle offers.
Am not thinking about overclocking as yet, don't know anything about it.
I thought if I bought Akasa case it would good to work on regarding space, and with the space make it cooler with the fans at front and rear.
plus it's got a decent write up

Good point
If you are not gonna overclock i would seriously consider a SHUTTLE system. SN95G4, its great and looks amazinf. Don't worry abt heat issues as most cases have plenty of ventilation to keep a computer stable.

[muayboran]

amd athlon 64 3200+ Winchester 90nm (socket939)
Really like the Akasa case so think I'll stick we that. like how yer can totally take it apart and it has removable tray as well. Plus it looks as cool as it's quiet.
Is the psu ok?

[speedy_s]

Akasa PSU umm u can and should get better. I would go with Enermax, Tagan or Antec. Make sure the amps on 12v is higher than 20 towards 24.

[RDL]

You could use spare RAM money on a Tagan 480W PSU.

[muayboran]

Is this a better choice, thanks for the advice.

Antec NeoPower 480W ATX2.0 PSU

[aidanjt]

if this is a home entertainment system then what you have put together is major overkill and a bit on the big side, it wouldn't sit well beside your TV, heres what I'd go for if i was building a home entertainment computer:

Shuttle XPC SN45GV3 Aluminium Barebones System - Socket A - £148.05
AMD Athlon "Barton" XP2600+ 333FSB (Socket A) CPU - OEM - £52.82
Akasa AK-786 CPU Cooler (Socket A) - £4.19
2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus NCQ 160GB ST3160827AS SATA 8MB Cache - OEM - £67.56 = £135.12
GeIL 512MB (2x256MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 - £52.82
NEC ND3520 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Silver) OEM - £42.30
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 THX Sound Card - OEM - £52.76
Total: £488.06

There you have a nice media center machine, which is able to play back anything, with top class sound quality, and tons of storage for music, your xvid/divx encoded movies etc etc..

*note* the lack of floppy drive to that list, you don't need it, except for installing windows, and you can temporarily connect an old floppy drive while installing windows and remove it when your done, no need to install it since it would do nothing 99.9999% of the systems running time and they look ugly as sin.

Anybody else see room for improvment?

[speedy_s]

i would go with nforce 4 system. So that is future proof and either antec overture or the new cube hoojun cases at scan.
Foxconn NF4UK8AA-8EKRS ATX nforce4 ultra is only £82 on overclockers.co.uk. Furthermore the mobo supports NCQ which is a boost. No point buying ncq hdd while the mobo can't support it.
Proc could be 3000+ winchester which colud be found at ebuyer for £97. I won't go for Skt A based system because of lack of cool n quite.

A 6600 PCIE would finish the job. As they have hardware decoder and other stuff that REALLY IMPROVES image quailty when playing DVD's. Everything else same as aidanjt.

For a PSU you don't need anything over ~ 420W good quality.

[skuzgib]

Is this a better choice, thanks for the advice.

Antec NeoPower 480W ATX2.0 PSU

Nowt wrong the akasa to be honest - I have one and have had no probs with it. It's dead quiet.