Help me shop for a HTPC

[nawf]

Hi all,

I'm a total noob when it comes to HTPC's, but am looking to buy one for my living room to store/play my video collection and to also act as my main home pc (which just died).

Building my own is out of the question, as I'm not that savy and dont have much spare time. I also doubt I will be able to upgrade it down the road, so want it to be fairly future proof.

As it is going to be in the living room, I do want it to be small, but don't want to comprimise too much on performance. It can't really be more that 43cm wide, so that eliminates a few of the larger cases. Also I don't want it to be too noisy.

What I would ideally like to have in it would be:

intel i5 processor
4tb storage (not sure what the best configaration would be with this, prob looking at 2x 2tb, but am open to better suggestions)
8gb RAM
HD TV tuner
Blu ray Reader DVD rewriter
1GB Graphics
Windows 7

Sooo.. After hours of online browsing and a big headache, I've found a few choices, but am unsure of which build and shop to go with.

This is my favorite looking HTPC, but the upgrades seem overpriced and aren't as powerful as my second (larger) choice. With my prefered upgrades, this comes to almost £1500, which way too much. *No competitors!*

Second choice is a way more powerful unit, but is quite a bit taller. *No competitors!*. With my prefered upgrades, I can get a build that comes to £1000. They don't have HD TV cards though
The unit I'm looking at is the Silverstone LC16S... *No competitors!*
I'm a bit daunted by the amount of choices *No competitors!* offer. I've no idea what the best mobo to choose is. And There are too many hard drive configaration/options, which have made me question whether 2tb+2tb is the best option. Any advice here?


3rd choice comes from another reputable looking company. Unfortuantly they dont have many small base units (with a VFD) and dont offer HD TV cards. I'm looking at the LianLi C39B unit. With my prefered upgrades I can get a unti here for about £1000 again...*No competitors!*

So I'm not sure whether to go for the stylish, less powerfull and more expsenive unit (choice 1), or go for a super powerful large unit (choice 2), or a compromise (choice 3). Can anyone give me some advice, or suggest something better?

 

[munz]

i5 overkill go i3,pair it with hd 6450(fanless silent)
2x2tb HDD
4gb ram is plenty, you can get away with 2gb tbh, but so cheap go for 4.

build it your self , help from us here, vids on youtube etc.

you can get yourself a htpc that will devour everyhting you can throw at (except games) for maybe £600.

If you really really wanna go overkill go AMD lllano new chip APU came out like erm.. 4th july 2011.. so liek.. 2 weeks ago. Low energy 4 core processor and hd 5550 graphics all in one apu (=CPU+GPU)

spend extra left over cash on sweet case, input device (harmony remote,wireless keyboard, mini keyboard+mouse wheel combo)


i3 + hd6450

or

AMD llano

not so sure what ye mean regarding future proof, new CPU, new GPU every year hard to keep up mate best spend now.. use until doens'nt meet requirements and then start again/upgrade key bits.



Very rough and random Example below!

Spend £750 now use for 2 year spend £750 use for 2 year

vs

Spend £1500 use for 4 year

id prefer to go upgrade/new build in 2 year route, keep "stuff" relatively upto date, trying to futureproof something for like 4 years is rough, after 4 years a lot of warranty would have run out. New/shiny kit vevery 2 years for same price as spending loads now and being stuck with it for ages.

Example is probabaly bad you might wanna spend £150000000 every year etc. but hopefully you get what the example represents