Final check of HTPC build

Freddie1980 · 21 May 2010 at 16:57

I'm just about ready to build myself a HTPC and it's been somthing I've been gagging to do for some time now. It's going to sit in my living room and I plan to use for watching & recording television, gaming, music, DVD collection and Bl-Ray (as and when I get some Blu-Ray movies) and here is the final spec.

Case - Lian Li PC-C33B
CPU - Intel Core i3 530
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-H55M-S2H
Ram - OCZ 4Gb DDR3 low voltage PC3-12800C8 1600MHz
Optical Drive - Samsung SH-B083L/RSBP 8x BluRay ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive
Hard Drives - 1x Samsung Spin point F3 500Gb (OS & Games)1x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB (Storage)
PSU - Corsair CX 400W
Video Card - Asus Radeon HD5770 1Gb (recylced from my other PC which will get a farily cheap replacement liek a 4670 or somthing)
TV Tuner - Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-HD-S2 (can't link this as OC don't stock it, but basicaly this is a Satalite TV tuner which works on DVB-S2)
Input Devices - Keysonic ACK-612RF , logitech harmony 650, Xbox 360 Wireless Controller
Software - Windows 7 & Media Portal

My main concerns is just how quiet this will be, stock Intel fan, video card fan, case fans, PSU fans - they all add noise. Thoughts or suggests?

Ryan-3 · 21 May 2010 at 17:12

It should be all quiet tbh, with the intel cpu fan set to silent, it should be like a whisper

Freddie1980 · 22 May 2010 at 00:40

Ryan-3 said:
It should be all quiet tbh, with the intel cpu fan set to silent, it should be like a whisper

Cheers, the only other I really had concerns about was the PSU but if I remember correctly the lower models are made by Seasonic (rather then Channel well who do the top end models) which should at least in theory mean their super quiet unless someone knows different from experience.

MonkeykingZX · 22 May 2010 at 15:43

looks fine to me mate

PermaBanned · 22 May 2010 at 15:54

Is this not massively overspecced for an HTPC?

MonkeykingZX · 22 May 2010 at 16:00

he mentioned he was gonna play some games aswell

Freddie1980 · 22 May 2010 at 16:18

Superewza said:
Is this not massively overspecced for an HTPC?

Well I'm looking to play games like Mass effect 2, Dirt 2, Grid etc on it so it needs some beef in there.

paulh · 22 May 2010 at 16:30

if you dont mind me asking how much is all that setting you back? been looking at a htpc for ages but cant make my mind up.

PermaBanned · 22 May 2010 at 16:31

Well i just did a spec but for some reason i decided to close the tab, so anyway, why not an Antec Minuet with an Athlon X3, 2GB DDR3 and a 5450 with XBMC MediaStream?

Freddie1980 · 22 May 2010 at 20:00

paulh said:
if you dont mind me asking how much is all that setting you back? been looking at a htpc for ages but cant make my mind up.

No worries - £650-£700