Cheap silent HTPC?

Ease · 18 Aug 2009 at 21:41

Okay, I'm not sure if I'm going to have the budget to do this or not, but I wanted some thoughts/outlines for an affordable, super quiet HTPC.

Firstly; I was hoping to put an HD4850 in it, as I should have one spare soon. I have an Vortexx Neo cooler to put on it, if there ends up being enough room, which should keep it cooler and quieter?

Secondly; power is not a big issue. I probably don't even need dual-core. All it will do is play files from my network, and hopefully blu-rays too (though this isn't an important requirement).

I also have a hard-drive I can throw in it, so that's covered too. What do you recommend?

Ease · 19 Aug 2009 at 07:45

Well I figure I have it here already, and when I get my new graphics card (which will be when the Dx11 cards come out) the prices of HD4850's should drop again, so it'll be hard to sell. Plus I'm quite busy (read as: lazy) and can't be bothered to sell it.

What about the MSI M3-F Intel G31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard? Much cheaper, a bit smaller, and seems to be pretty good. Also, with an E5200 and an HD4850 what power supply should I be looking at? 300W? Or a lot more? Should hopefully only have one hard drive (maybe even SSD) and one optical drive (maybe blu-ray).

What do you think of this?

What CPU cooler will fit? Any chance (I know this is a long shot) that I could down-clock the CPU and use a passive cooling method?

Ease · 19 Aug 2009 at 08:51

You really do need to do more research!!!

I've done none. None, whatsoever. That's kind of the point of this thread. Wasn't sure about the blu-ray drive fitting anyway; that's not that important as I do have a PS3 already. The SSD is for silence and power-efficiency. A hard-drive spinning up in the middle of a movie would really annoy me.

Also, isn't a mini-itx much larger than a micro-atx, so a micro should fit in it?

Ease · 19 Aug 2009 at 10:17

I was tempted by one of those actually, but part of me wanted the joy of putting it together myself. Stupid, I know, but I may/probably will be swayed into just getting one of these anyway.

Thanks for the info on mATC and mini-ITX. I guess I was just thrown by the names, as micro sounds smaller than mini to me

I was also hoping to play low-end old games on whatever I built, like Battle for Middle Earth (one or two) or other cheap games, but this isn't a big requirement as I do have a main PC anyway.

The Asrock ION actually looks pretty good for the job... I'm going to sit on this idea and think about it a bit!

Ease · 19 Aug 2009 at 21:46

The reason I need an HTPC as well as a PS3 is that the PS3 seems quite picky about what files it will play. I have a whole series on my computer, all of the same file format from the same source, and the PS3 will only play half of them... even though my computer can play all of them without any problems. Also quite a few of my files are .mkv for subtitles and whatnot, or ISO's, and the PS3 can't do either of them.