HT & Gaming PC Spec

Roswell

Roswell

Roswell

Associate
Joined
13 Nov 2008
Posts
12
Hi all,

This is my first post here.

I am considering buying/building an HTPC for my living room but also want a machine that's going to be excellent for gaming too.

Here is the spec I came up with:

CASE: Zalman HD160+ Aluminium HTPC Case – Silver

PSU: Corsair HX 1000W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU

MOTHERBOARD: Asus Rampage Extreme Intel X48 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.83GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor + Arctic Cooling Freezer XTREME CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/AM2+/AM2/939)

MEMORY: Corsair 4GB DDR3 Dominator 1800C8DF Twin3X (2x2GB)

GRAPHICS CARD: Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express)

HARD DRIVE: Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache

MEDIA DRIVE: Pioneer BDR-202BK 4x BD-R/RE Blu-Ray Serial ATA Dual Layer DVD Writer

MOUSE: Logitech MX Revolution Advanced Cordless Mouse

KEYBOARD: Logitech diNovo Edge


I'm just looking for some expert views on the spec. Positives, negatives and alternatives.

Thanks for your help.

Roswell
 
looks like a bit of a beast of a htpc! Might be a bit loud for living room! Any reason for ddr3? Might aswell buy a decent p45 ddr2 unless you are planning on getting two 4870x2's! And saves you a heap of money!
 
Was eventually thinking of getting another 4870x2.

Noise wise I'm not too bothered as everything goes through my amp so I shouldn't really hear the fans when it's turned up.
 
Roswell said:
Was eventually thinking of getting another 4870x2.

Noise wise I'm not too bothered as everything goes through my amp so I shouldn't really hear the fans when it's turned up.
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Wanna bet? It's gonna be loud!

IMO the motherboard and memory are a little OTT - DDR3 only gives a smidge more performance than DDR2. And also I thought the F1 1TB was slower than the smaller ones - why not get 2x500GB?
 
Ok guys I am here for advice.

Why go for 2 500s rather than the 1Tb?

What's your definition of loud? What are your suggestions for making it quieter?

Any suggestions for a different MB?
 
Wow, I can only imagine what monster screen's your hooking this upto :D

Samsung F1 drives are very loud! Not really HTPC material imo. A boot SSD would be best if your spending that much (With storage drives elsewhere or a very quiet one in the case)
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Chrysler cordoba specifications
 
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Yeah bt you wont hear the f1s over the gfx card and case fans. And the 1tb is one of the high density drives that has the new 320gb platters, stick with these! either the 320, 640 or 1tb. Like some has suggested maybe a smaller one for os then larger ones for data storage.

Is the screen full hd? 1920x1080?
 
Yeah full HD screen.

I picked the HD because it was suggested over in the HTPC build thread.

How much noise are we talking about compared to Sky HD and PS3?
 
I know the Zalman is a big HTPC case, but are you certain a HX1000 PSU will fit in it (I have doubts).
 
Back to the Grpahics card. I see there is a Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Golden Sample coming. This looks like it's gonna run quieter than the standard card. What do you guys think?
 
sWiZzLe said:
News to me :eek: i got 5 very silent ones :p
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Agreed I've got 3 quite ones, one in a HTPC and you can't hear them...

I say go for it, i tried to get as quite HTPC as i could, then i stuck it in the living room and listened...i could hear the fridge and cars drving past much louder the the PC! Quite CPU fan and case the rest is managable, my 8800GTS 512 and 48701GB (other PC) are both silent when watching movies and when gaming who cares, too much sound coming from the AMP to notice.

Good Luck!
 
ssmacc said:
Agreed I've got 3 quite ones, one in a HTPC and you can't hear them...

I say go for it, i tried to get as quite HTPC as i could, then i stuck it in the living room and listened...i could hear the fridge and cars drving past much louder the the PC! Quite CPU fan and case the rest is managable, my 8800GTS 512 and 48701GB (other PC) are both silent when watching movies and when gaming who cares, too much sound coming from the AMP to notice.

Good Luck!
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That's what I like to hear :)
 
sWiZzLe said:
News to me :eek: i got 5 very silent ones :p
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Guess it depends on the case and ppls noise perception, mine was too loud in an HTPC shuttle case (We're not talking rapter noise but its quite audible over everything else and rather annoying when Vista starts paging and stuff :D) Check out the 5400rpm WDC greens if your interested.
Anyway he's talking about a ?470 gfx's card just for a single 1080p screen! Why not get raid SDD's as well ;)

Roswell, check out this thread for the best graphics advice.

Personally I'd go for a 4780 1gb or a 260 maxcore. Also check out the dimensions of the card as the longer ones might not fit in the case.
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Vaporizer Reviews
 
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sarge78 said:
Guess it depends on the case and ppls noise perception, mine was too loud in an HTPC shuttle case (We're not talking rapter noise but its quite audible over everything else and rather annoying when Vista starts paging and stuff :D) Check out the 5400rpm WDC greens if your interested.
Anyway he's talking about a £470 gfx's card just for a single 1080p screen! Why not get raid SDD's as well ;)

Roswell, check out this thread for the best graphics advice.

Personally I'd go for a 4780 1gb or a 260 maxcore. Also check out the dimensions of the card as the longer ones might not fit in the case.
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Thanks for the link sarge. So if you had the money would you go for the 4780x2?? It seems from that thread that you would.
 
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