budget htpc build my first attempt....

apple_man77

apple_man77

apple_man77

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Had a little go at speccing my own for as cheap as possible really, especially on some components, have splashed out on other parts like the SSD and a fairly decent CPU.

Will put the case beside the sofa for now so it might not be a proper HTPC in a sense but thats its main role.

Will eventually add a dedicated graphics card, bigger SSD and a blu ray drive or maybe an external drive and not have an internal drive fitted to save on noise.

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3)
Intel X25-V Value 40GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive
Corsair XMS3 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Single-Channel Module
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3 MA770 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard
Antec Sonata Proto Quiet Midi Tower Case - Black
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply
Samsung SH-D162D/BEBE IDE 16x DVD-ROM (Black)

Total: £442 from Overclockers

Is there anything sticking out like a sore thumb? Incompatible or too slow for a htpc?

Obviously I'll need to get a copy of windows 7 as well. Will I need to buy anymore cooling for the CPU if its going to be left on 24/7?

Thanks for any more help.
Mark.
 
what is the main purpose of the system ?

for a standard HTPC that is used just for media and such, then ur spec is way overkill.

did u want to use it to play games on as well or something ?

if all u want it for a media, then u could build cheaper, and much quieter one.

basically, what do u want it do and what will u be using it for ?
 
Thanks for the quick reply. Don't want to play any games on it.

I want something that can be left on 24/7 and work virtually straight away on wake up. I want it to store music/films/photo's just want to have media centre installed and going to be running this to a 42" tele and to an amp eventually. I've got a blu ray player so will use that still for blu ray. Would like it to be able to go on the internet for youtube / catch up etc.

I want it to be virtually silent, reliable and with no lag when playing music etc.

Hope that makes some sense.
Thanks
Mark
 
what i would suggest is to get something like an ION.
the Asus ION Deluxe is passive (completly silent) and even comes with WiFi and a silent PSU you can use.

Some advantages of the ION over something liek you speced, is that it doesn't use any where near the same amount of power, they are incredibly low powers. They are also either near silent, or completly silent, depending on which one you get. Some are passive, others have a small fan.

The onboard GPU, the Nvidia ION, is capable of hardware decoding of videos and can handle 1080p and blu ray fine.

they dont have the fastest CPU, but generally, u dont need it at all.

As they are also mini-itx (very small) they'll fit into any case.

and using something like a Pico PSU, would be silent as well and delivery enough power for an Atom/ION.

the SSD would be silent as well, and help with boot times, using something like MythBuntu or XBMC can boot up very quickly and dont need much in the way of CPU power.
cant say about windows 7 media center thou, as i've never used that.

This means that the only thing making any noise in the PC would be the your storage hard drive u want to put media on, getting a green drive would help with that thou, as well as power usage
 
That motherboard looks spot on, and a good price. Do they come fitted with an Atom CPU as standard. As you've said with a SSD and quiet PSU that should be spot on for a cheap, silent HTPC. :D

Many thanks again
Mark
 
 
the Asus Deluxe is actually DDR3, so u'll need different ram.
and yes, it coems with CPU, heatsink etc, all u need is ram to make it into a complete system.

then obviousy the harddrive/ssd u want etc

for the case, pretty much any case will do really, and is a personal choise.
if u like the look of it, then go for it.
i do like the Lian Li cases

for cheap ram, u could go for
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-183-OC&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1516

u dont need fast ram, it'll be wasted as u wont be overclocking.

the rest is fine thou, the PSU would then be the loudest part in your pc, and they are pretty quiet, especially when not under load, and the pc wouldn't even come close to using half the power, so it should be near silent.
 
Many thanks for all your help cycrow :-)

I'll get myself some bits ordered and try and put it all together. Wasn't sure which case just didn't want a huge one. What's the difference between micro atx and mini atx as there's another nice lian li case too.

Yeah 40gb is a little small but I want SSD and its the best one I could afford at the moment.

Thanks again.
Mark
 
Mini itx is smaller
Usually with only 1 expansion slot

Micro is abit bigger

Mini itx will fit in a micro atx case thou

If u need extra storage u could always get an external drive or nas
 
Nice spec guys. Just one question though. One of the reviews for this mo'board says it can't support full HD audio for Blu-ray playback. I'm looking at a very similar build myself, but want the full HD for both audio/video. Any ideas?
 
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