Building a new HTPC need a bit of help!

jammir

jammir

jammir

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Ok I’m new to the forum so hi all.

I’m building a HTPC just for movies (HD stuff and normal xvids) and audio

I want the system to be silent as possible

What I have so far:

Zalman HD135 (not the best choice but works with space I have)
AMD AM2 Athlon 64 3800+
Asus ASUS M2V
1gb Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC4200 2x512mb
M-Audio Revo 5.1
Tagan 480w PSU silent
2x 500gb WD sata HDD
Pioneer 111
2x Nexus 120mm (custom fit atm bit of tape that is lol but keeps the system cool in test runs)

It’s going to be connected to:

Sony 46” 1080p LCD (1080p only via HDMI or upto 1080i via component)
Denon 4306
5.1, B&W 602 s3 fronts, Mission m3c1i centre, Mission m3dsi rear & Rel T1 sub

What I still need to get:

PCI-E vga card (needs to be fanless and have HDTV out, HDMI is a bonus)
CPU fan (to fit max height of 125mm to top of case and quite as possible)

I want the vga card to be good enough to run all current HD content not going to be playing games at all on this system as I have another PC for that.

So what I’m asking is if you can recommend items to fill the last two components and if you have any suggestion about upgrades to any of the components I already have?

Budget for card and cpu fan is about £120.00 but if I can get it for less the better.
 
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There are a few different 7600gs silent graphics cards. They should be more than enough for your needs although they wont have HDMI.
 
I was looking at the Silverstone NT06 would that run k without the fan?

and the gfx cards im looking at are

Asus 7300GT Silent 256MB PCI-E TV OUT/DVI Graphics Card @ £55
or
Asus EN7600GS/SILENT/HTD/512MB PCI-E Graphics Card @ £80

do you guys think I would need the extra 256mb? would the drop from 7600 to 7300 be noticable for my needs and do you know if the DVI on these cards have HDCP?
 
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I have tested the setup with a 8800GTS DVI>HDMI adaptor and runs at 1080p with no probs to my Sony would this be the case with most DVI cards, I know the 8800 has HDCP
 
Video playback doesn't stress videocard really, the CPU does all the work. I've used onboard Nvidia 6150 with shared memory and that is fine with 1080p, and scaling DVD & AVI's to 1080p. So 7300GS 128MB will be suitable.

HDCP is only a concern when using a source with HD copy protection, so normal DVD's and AVI's won't be a problem.
 
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