Help building a htpc with light-medium gaming

dazzday

dazzday

dazzday

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11 Aug 2011
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9
Hi all,

Looking to build a HTPC that will be used to game at medium use. Looking really for it to replace the xbox, ps3 etc, and possible be able for dolphin emulation (not a priority)
Its requirements will be to be quiet during HTPC mode (from 6-8ft away) and have the ability to play all releases (BF3, Skyrim etc) on a 42inch plasma at 1024×768 at high+ for my resolution.

Current components:

CPU - i5-750
Mobo - Asus P7P55-M Matx
HDD - WD Green 1Tb

To come:

SSD - Probably pick up a sata II 60gb
RAM - 4Gb 1333Mhz DDR3
Optical drive - standard sata

Where I am stuck!

Case - Looking at Silverstone Granida GD04, Antec Fusion Remote and Antec NSK2840 (with included 380w Earthwatts power supply). Any obvious one I am missing?

PSU - something quiet

CPU fan - have no stock fan with CPU so I require this. Must take case into consideration

GPU - Not sure what i require for the settings I want to game at. Dont want something overkill that creates too much noise, heat etc.

What would be the max I could get away with on the 380w psu if i bought the antec case? (new 7750 maybe?)
Otherwise is HD 6850 (€100) the optimal card for my needs or will this be overkill? Can pick up a 6570 for (€40) but I am inclined to think this is underpowered or a 5870 for a only a little over €100 but surely overkill?


Thanks for any help!
 
Case is an entirely personal choice, what you like is not going to be the same as others.
Silverstone GD04, GDO5 and GD06 are all based on the same chassis, with a different front panel on each of the models.
Out of the 3 cases you've listed the GD-04 is better to suited for a gaming system despite only accepting M-atx boards and smaller.

The GD04, 05 and 06 are extremely good vlalue for money, and some of the very few cases of this volume and layout capable of taking a full size gfx card (should the need arise)
The GD04, 05 and 06 also have 3 x 120mm case fan mounts making them highly suitable for high powered / overclocked hardware, and very, very easy to silence by undervolting / replacing the 120mm case fans.

Psu.
The hardware you are looking at powering will only require a 300w psu tops.
Even with a card such as a 6950 you'd only be looking at a total system power draw of around 260w playing games, with a 7750 around 190w draw while gaming.
Most people vastly over estimate the power draw of the hardware they buy.

This is more than enough and with a low system power draw the fan will never get to noisy levels.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-059-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084

CPU cooler.
The ever popular http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-027-SY&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

Very quiet for HTPC use and will still keep the i5 750 cool while gaming.

Gaming.

At 1024 x 768 res, most games are as you might have guessed mostly cpu limited rather than GPU.

A 7750 / 7770 sounds ample for that although you may struggle to find any reviews of either card running such a low resolution.

It also depends on what games you play and how much eye candy you want on.
Just google around looking for low res benchmarks for the games you are looking at.
Skyrim for example is still going to bring a low powered gfx card to it's knee's even at low res.
 
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Some excellent help there Legion, cheers for that.

sythe shuriken rev 2 definately on my list. Quite ol though is it not? Is there any newer version or equivalent available for socket 1156?

Still a little concerned about the psu needed for what gpu. From all i read a 380w wouldnt be recommened for i5 and 6850 combo, but you seem to differ. Any reasoning for that?
 
dazzday said:
Some excellent help there Legion, cheers for that.

sythe shuriken rev 2 definately on my list. Quite ol though is it not? Is there any newer version or equivalent available for socket 1156?

Still a little concerned about the psu needed for what gpu. From all i read a 380w wouldnt be recommened for i5 and 6850 combo, but you seem to differ. Any reasoning for that?
Click to expand...

I quoted the Shuriken because it's still a damn good little cooler and good value for money.
s1155 and s1156 coolers use exactly the same mountings, there's no difference.

If price isn't a concern however, the just arrived Noctua NH-L12 would be my 1st choice for an air cooled gaming htpc.
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=46&lng=en
I'll be buying one myself for a Trinity "casual / portable gamer" m-itx build later in the year.

Back to PSU's.
I've used and built into a GD05 a few little monsters now, the last build (which I've just split) was an i5 2500k@ 4.6ghz, Asus P8P67M-PRO motherboard,8 gb gskill ripjaws cas 8, MSI twinfrozr III HD6950, OCZ Vertex 2 60gb ssd as the boot drive and a sammy f3 1tb for the games and a blue ray drive.
For cooling I modded the case to take a Corsair H60 with a 7 volted 1100prm Gentle Typhoon, and replaced the other 2 case fans with the same Gentle Typhoons.

I ran all this on a Nexus NX-5000 (530w) psu.

Total system power draw at the socket was always ~270w gaming.
That's why I can quote those figures to you with confidence.
I use a Kill-a-watt to measure the draw at the socket.

With a stock clocked i5 750 and a 6850 you'd see a gaming power draw of ~230w
 
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