HTCP fun!

tommej

tommej

tommej

Associate
Joined
30 Oct 2009
Posts
2
Hello! I'm thinking of building a HTPC for my parents for a christmas present. They're both computer savvy so they should be fine! I have a few questions though and I'm hoping someone can answer!

Firstly, I've seen quite a few builds all over the net and I think this is the build I feel most confident with, although I can't get it all from ocuk, which sucks! I'm very open to suggestions as I've never built a htcp before but it looks like a really fun little project.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200S
Zotac 9300ITX Motherboard
WD Green 1tb
Optiarc 7670S Slot Loading DVD-RW
Zotac 9600GT Green Edition (59w) or onboard???
Thermalright AXP-140
4GB Kingston HyperX
150w Pico ITX PSU + 150w FSP Sparkle Brick


Now digital TV, My parents have a sky subscription as well as freeview. Is it possible to run this through the HTPC, possibly with recording functionality? If so what kind of hardware will I need to do this?

Cheers!
 
That's a very odd build. The whole point of the 9300 board is that it will handle the decoding of content so you don't need a powerful CPU, just the cheapest C2D. Nor do you need a separate GPU because you have the onboard IGP.
If it's not for anything HD (I notice no BD drive) then you can go with even less. Or as a complete alternative there's the Acer Revo but it only takes 2.5" drives.
 
built my htpc around the 9300 chipset. handle hd and sd without a sweat with a E5300 and no gpu.
really a quad is overkill and a gpu is of no use unless gaming, really happy with my htpc.
 
I have an older GA-MA69GM-S2H mobo for my htpc, works fine using onboard hdmi. I use optical out for audio now but it does audio+video via hdmi (the mobo has been superseded now by a newer one but just fyi)
 
I made my HTPC from the 780G chipset as it is designed so that you can play 1080p without a dedicated gfx card. I also put in a 2.4Ghz AMD Dual core and 4Gb of ram.
 
it all depends on certain aspects of you set-up, what are you using for you audio set up, will you be using the set up to watch blu-ray movies and do you want full hd-audio.
 
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