Been out of the game for a while.....

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Hi all,

When I built my last system a few years ago I'm afraid I kind of lost touch with the building / modding scene :( But I'm back! :)

I now want to build a small (HTPC) PC to connect to my TV (32" HD ready) and also connect to my amp to play music thorugh my speakers. Oh, and I also want to be able to play new games on high settings :cool:

I will take the DVD drive out of my old system and I think I can put together the following pretty cheaply - I just need some recommendations as to whether it will all work together please and what I may have missed!

Antec NSK2480 case
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz CPU
Asus P5E-VM Intel G35 PCI-Express Socket 775 DDR2 mATX Mobo
Corsair 2x2Gb DDR2 PC6400 RAM
Sapphire HD4850 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI PCI-Express
Maxtor 500GB 7200RPM 32MB L2 Cache

This lot comes to about £475. I will use my existing DVD drive and Wireless network card and copy of Windows XP, unless anyone can give me a good reason to upgrade to Vista? :confused: I may add a Blu-ray drive if I can get a good deal on one but not too fussed on that.

Any opinions on this would be appreciated - I'm particularly interested in whether there will be any problems installing the GPU in that Antec case?

Cheers,
Matt
 
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Meloco, thanks, exactly the sort of advice I am after.

The case includes a 380w PSU which I believe should be ok? :confused:

I can't remember the speed of the DVD drive I have so I may change that.

I have no probs upgrading to Vista if it will give me better performance / features. Only being able to use 3.5Gb on XP seems a good enough reason!

Cheers,
Matt

EDIT: Why would you change the HDD to the one you mention? Is it quieter? To my (admittedly no longer trained!) eye it appears to be a lesser spec but just bigger size? I really can't see me needing any more than 500Gb in the near future.
 
Last edited:
Meloco, thanks, exactly the sort of advice I am after.

The case includes a 380w PSU which I believe should be ok? :confused:

I can't remember the speed of the DVD drive I have so I may change that.

I have no probs upgrading to Vista if it will give me better performance / features. Only being able to use 3.5Gb on XP seems a good enough reason!

Cheers,
Matt

EDIT: Why would you change the HDD to the one you mention? Is it quieter? To my (admittedly no longer trained!) eye it appears to be a lesser spec but just bigger size? I really can't see me needing any more than 500Gb in the near future.

tbh i'm only quoting it because most people on the forums say it is a quality pice of kit :)..

I would try and change the case to an Antec Three Hundred (or similar) and get a: http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-009-HP
Even though this says SLI-Certified, on the box it says "Cross-fire Certified" (Which is ATI)

Not sure about the PSU on your supplied case so I will wait until some1 with better knowledge replies (I personally would change it).
 
Not sure if I made it clear in the original post - this is for a HTPC type build so it is a mATX mobo I've specced. The Antec three hundred is a full size case yes?

Thanks for input so far though!

Cheers,
Matt
 
Not sure if I made it clear in the original post - this is for a HTPC type build so it is a mATX mobo I've specced. The Antec three hundred is a full size case yes?

Thanks for input so far though!

Cheers,
Matt

Ah yes, sorry didn't check the mobo. Still not too sure on that PSU though, and there is a guy on the forums here who had a similar setup to you and experienced some very high temps on his cpu. I'll edit in the link.
 
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