first time HTPC

gilljoy · 6 Mar 2011 at 18:01

Hey all I'm looking to get myself a little HTPC.

Ideally I'd be looking for something that can output high def movies to my 26" sony bravia, soon to be 32". Ideally at 1080p.

I've never really built a HTPC before so bit confused and got a few questions,

1. is it better to buy pre-puilt or custom build one?
2. can i use an old e7200 core 2 duo if going for custom?
3. is having a drive essential, Ideally I'd be looking to rip blu-rays onto a HDD for easy viewing.

Any recomendations? or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Viberious · 7 Mar 2011 at 14:45

Custom is always best - firstly decide on what case you want then build everything around it. I've got a antec fusion case, with an i3 540 and 4 gigabyte ram M-Atx motherboard and 2x2tb storage.

Your case will decide whether you want m-atx or i-tx then either intel or amd just depends on budget.

Participant · 7 Mar 2011 at 16:46

Viberious said:
Custom is always best - firstly decide on what case you want then build everything around it.

No, decide what you want it to do and buy the case based on that

.

gilljoy · 9 Mar 2011 at 11:33

Robbie G said:
No, decide what you want it to do and buy the case based on that .

I've currently got the following from my old system,

CPU: Intel Core 2 duo e7200,
PSU: Corsair 550w.
Memory : 2gb Generic ddr2 ram.
also have a Dual layer DVD-RW drive, tho could possibly get a blu-ray drive.

I'll need a case, motherboard and a descrete GPU for HD video output.

Any good socket 775 mini-itx boards? really like the lian li PC-Q07B but not sure if i'll be able to get a board with a PCI-E slot.

If not I may go for a fusion based setup, this one looks quite good Sapphire itx fusion board