Decent HTPC spec and advice

Zandali

Zandali

Zandali

Associate
Joined
4 Mar 2011
Posts
10
Right so previously owned a gaming rig which was an Antec 900/C2Q6600/4GB/3*250Raid0 set up and TBH after I had calmed down a bit with the OCing I ended up turning all the fans down, knocked off the clock and moved the thing into my living room. All was well but those bloody lights and the shear size of the thing really began to annoy me.

I recently bought a Lian Li C50b and I hacked my old PC to salvage my HDD's, DVD writer and PSU (Corsair 520 Modular).

So to some up, this is what I've got.

3x250 GB HDD's
520w PSU
DVD writer <-- The DVD writer is written off as it's too long and would force me to ditch a 1 HDD.

So chaps I need some advise on what to fill this box with.

I'll give you two price points, one is 300 and the other is 500. Also note that a BR drive at this stage is unrequired as I have a PS3. I'm quite liking the look of the HexCore AMD's for price and performance but I'm unsure if any of the boards have capable enough onboard graphics.

Here's my needs

  • HDMI out
  • Gbit LAN
  • USB3
  • At least 4 Sata ports

Wish list
  1. Large storage +1 TB with full back-up ability internal
  2. HexAMD/i7
  3. Very quiet

Opinions and possible specs more than welcome. Thanks for reading.
 
Yeah I hear you on the general grunt of the thing but I quite enjoy downloading and extracting movies as and when and I don't like waiting for either the downloading (Gbit LAN) or the extracting (MOAR POWER) so that's why I was going for those specific requirements. To be fair though I didn't really focus on that.

I might just drop the new processor altogether, what matx mobo and GFX card would anyone suggest with the Q6600?
 
Cycrow said:
I assume when u say downloading ur talking about online ? If so a gigabyte lan card won't make a difference as ull be limited by your intenet speed which is unlike to get close fast ethernet speeds let alone gigabyte

Also whe extracting files. Ur usually more limited by hard drive speed than processor speed
Click to expand...

Well VM is rolling out 100Mbps in my area shortly and I want to make the most of it, I was led to believe that I would need a lan card capable of handling that speed. The drives I have are RAID0 and seem quite fast.

Someone above posted just to keep the existing equipment and I've essentially decided to do that, so I've also now kept the CPU. WOuld I be right in thinking I could pair my C2Q6600 with this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-367-AS

What GFX card would you suggest I could marry with the board to provide HDMI + Audio or is it a simple case of providing it has a HDMI out then it will just work?
 
timciren said:
Rather than have a totally passive CPU cooler , I use a Sythe mini ninja with a single slow running fan and turn the case fans off. I also built a HTPC with a Freezer Pro, if the case fits a 120mm CPU fan I would get one so it can run very slow and quiet.
For the price I would swap the 3 250HDD for a single large capacity
Click to expand...

The case comes with 2 fans, I could nick one of them cheers. I will eventually swap to just 2 high capacity drives, one storage and one backup but for the time being I just want to get the thing up and running. Will only be using it for movies and light browsing really.
 
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