Soldato
- Joined
- 10 Jun 2010
- Posts
- 5,158
- Location
- Scotland
Looking to build a small HTPC case. I want it to have a bit of grunt as well, can't stand slowness!
I'm coming from an Atom+ION based system. It wasn't very snappy. Although the rubbish 2.5" Hitachi HDD may have been an issue.
Anyway. It's use will be as a HTPC and a general browsing machine. No gaming.
I'd like it to output to my 5.1 home theatre setup via HDMI if possible. If not, Spdif. Full blown bluray support with 5.1 is what I'm after. So DTS-MA LPCM and whatever the other technical terms for good audio are. I'm far from an expert in that field if you hadn't noticed
I looking at the AMD E-350 boards. However. After some reading, I can do a bit better I think. I'm on the fence with this.
Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3
Fractal Design Array R2 Mini ITX Case (With the 300W PSU)
i3-2100
I will also be adding my WD green 2TB drives. Possibly an SSD for boot drive.
That's pretty much it.
So my questions are. What do you think of it? Could I do better? How quiet is the PSU?
Could I add an aftermarket cooler to the i3 to make it quieter? Possibly a passive cooler? Or will this not fit in the Fractal?
Let me know your thoughts, all are welcome.
Budget is probably in the region of £350 tops. No more. This has to include, case, PSU, ram, mobo, cpu (or APU combo)
Thanks!
I'm coming from an Atom+ION based system. It wasn't very snappy. Although the rubbish 2.5" Hitachi HDD may have been an issue.
Anyway. It's use will be as a HTPC and a general browsing machine. No gaming.
I'd like it to output to my 5.1 home theatre setup via HDMI if possible. If not, Spdif. Full blown bluray support with 5.1 is what I'm after. So DTS-MA LPCM and whatever the other technical terms for good audio are. I'm far from an expert in that field if you hadn't noticed
I looking at the AMD E-350 boards. However. After some reading, I can do a bit better I think. I'm on the fence with this.
Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3
Fractal Design Array R2 Mini ITX Case (With the 300W PSU)
i3-2100
I will also be adding my WD green 2TB drives. Possibly an SSD for boot drive.
That's pretty much it.
So my questions are. What do you think of it? Could I do better? How quiet is the PSU?
Could I add an aftermarket cooler to the i3 to make it quieter? Possibly a passive cooler? Or will this not fit in the Fractal?
Let me know your thoughts, all are welcome.
Budget is probably in the region of £350 tops. No more. This has to include, case, PSU, ram, mobo, cpu (or APU combo)
Thanks!
