Bedroom PC/HTPC spec

Confused

Confused

Confused

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
8,015
Hi all,

I'm building up a PC for my uncle, which will be going in the bedroom, as both a day-to-day used PC, and for TV/video/DVD viewing.

I've put together the following list as a starter-for-ten, all that I can think is missing is case/PSU (please correct me if I've missed anything else blindingly obvious, or any of my choices are bad!), because I've no idea what to go for, being in a bedroom and doing HTPC stuff, it ideally wants to be as quiet as possible.

I think the max budget is ~£600, so no £200 case/PSU combinations, please! (although £100 will be OK, if it's going to be much quieter than £85 worth, for example!) ;)

bspec1xz8.png


I've got another thread going in Monitors regarding monitor choices, so that may change by a few £ either way depending on the outcome of that, but use the Belinea that's there now for pricing in this thread :)


Thanks in advance :)

Garry
 
this is what i would do, this way it allways has the option of being a main room htpc in the future.

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the gigabyte board is an excellent board and with its new 2.66 mem divider and that memory you should be able to overclock it aswell to around atleast 2.8ghz?
The samsung sata drive seems to be very quiet to me thats why i would recomend that aswell apart from that asus have diabolical rma support so i allways try to offer an alternative to them and the gigabyte seems is as good as any other and they are pretty good with there uk support.
 
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Ive got a PC in my bedroom, for a similar purpose. No gaming, but internet browsing, word processing and viewing video files. Obviously SD video isnt taxing, but HD is where you have to be careful.

Hard Disk Size
I would personally go for a 500GB (or bigger) hard disk. When recording stuff from the tv card, it will eat up lots of space, fast.

Video Card
Also, I would opt for at least an ATI HD2400XT video card. The HD2400Pro has problem decoding certain codecs. The 2400XT can do everything the high end cards can do. This will come in handy if/when you play HD-DVD and Bluray.

CPU, Heatsink and Fan
Your E2180 is a good choice, but I actually went with a E2160 oem (overclocked to 2.9ghz), which I got for around £42 from a competitor. With the money I saved, I got a Thermalright 120 and put on a Noctua 120mm fan. It is virutally silent.

Hard Disk Noise
The loudest component in my case is the Samsung 500GB hard disk. (If I had to do it again, I would get a 500GB WD, as I have found them to be quieter).

Case and PSU
The case that I bought cost around £10 IIRC and I bought the Corsair VX450W PSU. I couldve got away with an Antec 350W (if I wanted to save money).
 
Gotta say, having just built an HTPC for a friend, the E2180 is a great choice, this one will happily sit at 8 hours prime95 stable on both cores at 3GHz on STOCK VOLTS! Was amazed at how high this little baby went!

I got the Zalman CNPS-8700LED cooler as it would fit in the case and my mate wanted silent running. On the lowest fan speed the chip will idle at about 22c in my room (ambiente temp about 20c) and loads in prime, small FTTs at about 50c. It is virtually silent too.

Antec Fusion - great choice!! I used this case in the build, the psu seems fine even if you're ocing, didn't get hot at all in the 8 hour prime session. The case has 2 tri cool fans with carying speed so you can set them how you like, again on low this meant the comp was all but silent!

If he's not gonna be playing games personally i wouldn't waste money of a separate graphics card, the onboard graphics would be fine. Put the money towards an XFI to beef up your mp3's etc.

Edit: In fact, i've just noticed the new E2200. For the extra £3 you may as well get this chip, another 200Mhz and a higher divider for easier OCing.
 
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I'd ditch Vista and get XP + Media Portal. Apart from that both look good. Could get NSK 2440. Also need remote, does the TV card have a remote & IR receiver plus Media Centre buttons?
 
I think all the recommendations you are making are increasing the cost of the PC.

To the OP, does your budget allow for this increase?
 
I'm not really sure how flexible the budget is, although in our emails to/from each other, he did say "I don't mind upgrading the odd part but I don't want the cost to spiral out of control".

If I can see him tomorrow or Sunday with a few different options, within about say £50 or so of the budget, then we can make some more decisions.

I've just looked a bit more at that TV tuner card, and the remote doesn't seem to be a completely MCE compatible remote... and as OcUK don't stock any more tuner cards, or the MCE remotes, then I'll have to get them elsewhere, so lets make the OcUK budget around £500, give or take a few £.

Here's an updated spec list of what I've got so far, given some of the other suggestions:

bspec2ew5.png
 
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