Building an HTPC

magicroundabout · 23 Feb 2013 at 08:55

I've been seriously out of the loop regarding building a PC or knowing what is the best tech to use when building myself a HTPC.

The last build i did was my gaming PC in my sig.

I'm wanting to build myself a decent HTPC so i can download/rip DVD's music onto it etc instead of having a load of DVD's around.

I'd like it to be compact, have a blu-ray rw drive (for ripping blu-ray if at all possible) and be stylish.

Budget wise i would like to say as cheap as possible tbh but not so cheap it will struggle. So price wise i've no idea as i'm not upto date on what is best to use in an HTPC.

help would be appreciated

thank you

mranderson · 23 Feb 2013 at 08:56

First you start with mobo dimensions so you can look for the right case. What will it be?

magicroundabout · 23 Feb 2013 at 09:09

thanks for the reply.

i was going to base it on a M-ITX board so that it helps keep the size down

bastic · 23 Feb 2013 at 09:49

I just have finished building one myself...
case:Silverstone Sugo SG05
CPU : AMD A8-5600K
Asrock mITX
and SSD 128 for OS and few programs

Haven't tested it properly yet as I will be upgrading RAM so I can OC IGP a bit

then, it should be able to play games in 720p but do hope for 1080p

benchmarks on the net say that it should be possible.

Wanted smaller case but as you, I want bluray drive in it.

will be changing CPU cooler as well at some point as stock one is noisy and case fan will be taken out as well.

mranderson · 23 Feb 2013 at 10:18

Next question what type of case would you be looking at?
A cube style like the Sugo above or a slim one?

TJM · 23 Feb 2013 at 11:56

How much this costs will depend on how many components (if any) that you can reuse. I spent about £250 putting this together (after shopping around) as I already owned the mobo/CPU/RAM and HDDs:

Silverstone LaScala LC17 Rackmount HTPC Case (Great case - loads of room for drives and takes ATX boards)
BeQuiet Pure Power L8 430W
Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm Silent Case Fan x2
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard
Intel C2D E6750
Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler
4GB DDR2 RAM
Asus Radeon 6450 Silent
Crucial SSD M4 64GB
Samsung 2TB HDD x2
WD 3TB Green HDD

It's almost completely silent with the HDDs suspended using bungee cord and the temps are excellent - 20c idle and 35-40c under full load, with the HDDs staying under 30c.

mranderson · 23 Feb 2013 at 17:21

Way too big for an mITX setup.

Vertiginous · 23 Feb 2013 at 18:36

TJM said:
How much this costs will depend on how many components (if any) that you can reuse. I spent about £250 putting this together (after shopping around) as I already owned the mobo/CPU/RAM and HDDs:

Silverstone LaScala LC17 Rackmount HTPC Case (Great case - loads of room for drives and takes ATX boards)
BeQuiet Pure Power L8 430W
Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm Silent Case Fan x2
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard
Intel C2D E6750
Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler
4GB DDR2 RAM
Asus Radeon 6450 Silent
Crucial SSD M4 64GB
Samsung 2TB HDD x2
WD 3TB Green HDD

It's almost completely silent with the HDDs suspended using bungee cord and the temps are excellent - 20c idle and 35-40c under full load, with the HDDs staying under 30c.

yea..that case does look to be one of the bigger htpc cases

TJM · 24 Feb 2013 at 11:56

It's definitely on the big side, but it allows you to avoid having to use NAS or USB drives if you have a large media collection.