1st time HTPC build - need help please

buchtis

buchtis

buchtis

Soldato
Joined
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Location
Derbyshire
I'll be building a system for my mates dad for streaming videos off the net, using Bluray and general internet browsing. I've got all the part apart from the processor and motherboard with im stuck on as i've never built a low end PC before so not really sure what to chose.

So far I have the following:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

  • Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EARX) Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EARX) £73.99
  • LG CH10LS20 10x BluRay-ROM / 16x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (Retail) LG CH10LS20 10x BluRay-ROM / 16x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (Retail) £47.99
  • OcUK Opera Media Case - Black OcUK Opera Media Case - Black £39.98
  • Xebec iTouchpad Diamond Series Wireless Keyboard with Built In TouchPad - Black Xebec iTouchpad Diamond Series Wireless Keyboard with Built In TouchPad - Black £32.99
  • OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) £25.99
  • ATI Radeon HD 5450 SILENT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Lowest Price DX11 Graphics Card in UK** ATI Radeon HD 5450 SILENT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Lowest Price DX11 Graphics Card in UK** £22.99

Please note that this has to be able to play Blurays and 1080P videos with no lagg or stutter on a 56" T.V.

So i've basically got this but i've no idea if it'll be powerful enough:

AMD:

AMD Athlon II X3 Tri Core 455 3.30GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail

ASRock N68C-S UCC GeForce 7025 (Socket AM3/AM2+) DDR2/DDR3 microATX Motherboard [90-MXGES0-A0UAYZ]

Intel:

Intel Celeron Dual Core E3400 "LGA775" 2.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail [BX80571E3400]

Asus P5G41T-M LX Intel G41 (Socket 775) DDR3 Motherboard

Also, is the graphics card powerful enough for 1080P and Bluray playback?

Thanks.
 
ATI Radeon HD 5450 SILENT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Click to expand...
Have a read of this - http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1202/9/

And I quote from their review:
The Radeon HD 5450 graphics card is the ideal graphics card for a HTPC.
Click to expand...

Their test setup was using an AMD AM2 ATHLON X2 4850e.

The CPU usage went from 98% at maximum to 23% maximum, with the 5450.

So you're on the right lines and you're going with a stronger system than the one in the review.
 
Cheers. One more thing, is there any other HTCP cases that are cheaper than the one i've listed? It'll only have 1 Bluray drive in so won't need the 2 slots that the OcUK case has.
 
Hmm.. it certainly looks sexy for a cheap-n-cheerful case though!

I doubt you're going to get much cheaper than that... Maybe a Mini ITX cube style case would do, but my guess is you'd struggle for space!

EDIT:
Would it be compatible with a card-reader/Akasa Baymaster? It would certainly make things a little easier if he ever needed to move media from solid state storage or an SSD :)
 
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