Help!

Associate
Joined
8 Sep 2012
Posts
3
Hi guys,

If it's okay, I'd like your help building/choosing a HTPC/server solution. I know most of you recommend splitting them up, but unfortunately we don't have enough space to allow that right now.

The most important things to me are, obviously, noise and heat. I'd like it to be as quiet as possible but also cool enough to run quite happily 24/7 if necessary. We'll mostly be using it to stream HD YouTube and catch up services, play music and back up our data - most of the backing up will be done via the cloud but we'll keep a local copy of it too. Heat is the biggest issue, as we have a vivarium in the same room as the server will be in and our flat is so small and insulated that even when it's been freezing outside we haven't really felt it indoors. The lowest it's dropped during the winter is around 23 degrees Celcius, and in the summer the temperature never drops below 30, it's September and the average room temperature indoors is 28.

Size wise we're looking at anything up to 460mm high and 620mm deep to fit next to our TV unit - ideally smaller, but also happy to go slightly larger rather than sacrifice cooling. I've been looking at the Corsair 550D, Fractal Design R4, and the upcoming BitPhoenix Ghost, along with CPU coolers but with no reference to how cool they'll run it's very difficult to make a choice.

We already have hard drives and don't need an OS, just need the motherboard, RAM, case, power supply, cooling... maybe a fan controller? Four bays should be plenty, for three HDDs and one SSD, and one optical disc bay, possibly two (or we might just get an external blu ray drive). Currently I'm thinking a decent CPU will mean that a graphics card isn't necessary though I've heard some cards (7950?) can run exceptionally cool?

Budget is around £600, and preferably I'd like to not have to do any mods to it as I don't really have the time or the space. I know this is asking a lot, but any suggestions or recommendations (even just to say 'sorry dude, can't be done!') would be most appreciated :)
 
For those needs an inbuilt GPU will do. You also don't really need a high end CPU either. If you're also planning to play BDs on it then AMD Llano may be the better one to go with as the Intel has a 24fps bug which could make watching DVD/BDs uncomfortable.

A quick spec up:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A6-3670K 2.70GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor (AD3670WNGXBOX) **£10 Cashback** £79.99
1 x LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (Retail) £79.98
1 x Fractal Design Define Mini Computer Case - Black £74.99
1 x Gigabyte A75M-D2H A75 (Socket FM1) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard ** FREE NEXUIZ GAME ** £59.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC) £31.19
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/ AMD AM3/AM3+/AM2/AM2+/FM1) £29.99
Total : £408.11 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Chose the Fractal Design Define Mini as it's smaller than the size you want, and has 2 5.25" bays and 6 3.5" bays. Plenty of space for a server.
 
Hi Orcvader, thanks for a good starting point!

I've heard about the Intel chipset being a bit buggy but wasn't sure if it was still present in the newest Ivy Bridge CPUs..?

The machine won't really play blu-rays directly, it will more be used to rip them to MKV format, then using something like XBMC to browse and watch them later.

I've shown the missus the above cases as they are a nice, sleek design and swayed her over to size not being much of a problem, it doesn't have to sit flush with the TV stand if noise/heat would be compromised - we'd much rather having something slightly bigger with better cooling and/or less noise, really. As the build above comes in nicely underneath the budget, do you think it would be useful to swap to say, the fanless CPU by seasonic? Or tget better fans for whichever case we choose/CPU cooler? Or, would you suggest a different motherboard/CPU as a better use of the money?

Thanks ever so much for your help so far, I really appreciate it!
 
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