Need advice on new htpc build, already have some items picked out but need a case.

Meridiusuk

Meridiusuk

Meridiusuk

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Hi all building a front end for my htpc and having some problems picking a case, I have or am going to buy a low profile gfx card which also has the normal full plate so i can choise different case hights.

the items i have picked are below what do you think ?

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit SP1, Operating System, Single, - OEM

2 x Samsung HD204UI/Z4 Spinpoint F4EG, SATA 3Gb/s, 5400rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ

560W Seasonic X-560, Modular, 80 PLUS Gold, 90% Eff', SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Fan Cooling

Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BD-ROM & DVDRW Combo Player Retail box

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 Classic, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.50V

Asus P8P67-M Rev3, Intel P67 Express, S1155, PCI-E, 2.0 x16, DDR3 2133 / 2200, SATA 6Gb/s, RAID MATX

1024MB Sapphire HD 6450, 1334MHz GDDR3, GPU 625MHz, 160 Stream Processors, D-Sub/ DL DVI-I/ HDMI

Intel Core i5 2300, S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 2.8GHz, GPU 850Mhz, 6MB Cache, 95W, Retail

I need some help on this as i am finding it hard to find the right case.

any thoughts on the spec above will it play the highest of bitrate blu rays as i have herd you need a good machine to play blu rays at 48mb which ratatouille is the highest blu ray out there.

I want no frame rate drops at all or for it to struggle

thanks all for any help
 
Meridiusuk said:
Hi all building a front end for my htpc and having some problems picking a case, I have or am going to buy a low profile gfx card which also has the normal full plate so i can choise different case hights.

the items i have picked are below what do you think ?

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit SP1, Operating System, Single, - OEM

2 x Samsung HD204UI/Z4 Spinpoint F4EG, SATA 3Gb/s, 5400rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ

560W Seasonic X-560, Modular, 80 PLUS Gold, 90% Eff', SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Fan Cooling

Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BD-ROM & DVDRW Combo Player Retail box

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 Classic, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.50V

Asus P8P67-M Rev3, Intel P67 Express, S1155, PCI-E, 2.0 x16, DDR3 2133 / 2200, SATA 6Gb/s, RAID MATX

1024MB Sapphire HD 6450, 1334MHz GDDR3, GPU 625MHz, 160 Stream Processors, D-Sub/ DL DVI-I/ HDMI

Intel Core i5 2300, S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad Core, 2.8GHz, GPU 850Mhz, 6MB Cache, 95W, Retail

I need some help on this as i am finding it hard to find the right case.

any thoughts on the spec above will it play the highest of bitrate blu rays as i have herd you need a good machine to play blu rays at 48mb which ratatouille is the highest blu ray out there.

I want no frame rate drops at all or for it to struggle

thanks all for any help
Click to expand...

Looks a solid spec but just fyi, I have my htpc which is an old e5200 2.5ghz at stock with a 'measly' 2gb ddr2 800 ram and a ati hd4350 gpu that is running beautifully with both windows 7 media centre as well as playing my blu-rays flawlessly. I haven't got Ratatouille but I have run Wall-e/toy story triology/despicable me etc and they have run without a hitch.

So I guess I'm saying you could go for a cheaper build which would do what you need :) Case wise I have a Silverstone LC17 in black which I would happily recommend, it fits nicely with most AV amps and has a plain brushed aluminium look. Imprtantly it has enough space and airflow to put in a decent full height gpu so if you wanted to create a gaming htpc it would help.
 
Agree^

Those specs are insane for a HTPC.

If you've got the money, then fair enough, but you really don't need to use components like that for a HTPC.
 
cheers will look into those cases,

maybe the spec is abit high but you have to remember these chips are the coolest running and want the best cooling possable because the cooler you can get a device the lower the rpm fans you can use.

it might be overkill to run movies but its not for the least amount of heat

I was looking at the antec fusion and the Zalman HD503 Home Theatre PC Case, Black Desktop with DFSTN LCD & Remote or the Silverstone Lascala LC16S-MR Silver Desktop HiFi if i could get it in black.

or the Silverstone Lascala LC20B, Black, HTPC or Lian-Li PC-C33B Black Aluminium - HTPC and Silverstone LC16B-MR Black Desktop/HTPC

a few cases to look at
 
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cheers would a Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor do instead of a i5 ?

as these are abit cheaper and cooler as the i3 is 65W and the i5 is 95W which should make the i3 cooler ? is this correct.

I want to run the most demanding blu rays and mkvs i Mean i want no droped frames at all and want it to run 100%

also lookng into a smaller motherboard but it all depends on what case i can get and if i can keep it sillent and cool

cheers
 
I built a W7MC HTPC earlier this year and am loving it so far.

Using a Samsung HD204UI as a main OS drive could cause you problems. If you plan to put the HTPC is suspend/sleep mode you may get a BSOD when waking it up. Happened to myself and another guy at work. I initially put it down to drivers on one of the TV tuners but he found a few forum post blaming the slow resume times of the HD204UI. I added a small SSD and no BSODs since.

If you will be using HTPC with W7MC and live TV the SSD will speed up the Guide and moving the live TV buffer to the SSD also make scanning though programs more responsive. You can also set your mechanical drives to spin down after 10 mins which keeps things nice and quiet.

I'd get a full height fanless GPU. I have the Sapphire HD5550 which has a huge heatsink and in the Silverstone Lascala LC20B it gets hot. A smaller heatsink on a low profile card might struggle.
 
cheers thinking of going for a Asus P8H67-M EVO now and what would you recomend for a SSD drive a 64gb version i want reliability

and what about silent real good 80mm fans any good ones out there
 
Hi all

bloody hel i am sick of trying to find a case, i ahve all my parts now apart from a case.

the thing is it needs to hold at least 5 HD and a SSD as i have 4 and a SSD already and wanted a spare or 2 HD holders for later on.

the ones i have looked at and sort of interested in are

Lian Li PC-C33B
Silverstone LC16B-MR

its hard to pick

any other suggestions ? the new Lian Li PC-C60 looks good to but its not out.

i dont know what to do even thinking of a tower but that looks to pc was looking at the fractal mini but i herd there not to good at build quality and the lian li B10 is a nice tower but only has 4 hard drive anti vibration and the spare 5 and 1/2 drive basy dont have any anti vibration

oh dear
 
the fractal design issues are due to not enough packaging to protect the case, and its mainly with Define R3s.
 
you can get low energy version of i3, called i3-2100T they use even less power.

edit: no need to worry i3 got plenty of oomph maybe add hd 5450 to get over 24fps issues if you notice it (basically a repeated frame every 40 secs some poeple notice it more than others)

People are running amd athlon x2, core 2 duo systems that can play high def flawlessly with help of a card liek 5450/6450/gtx 430

edit2: no aftermarket cpu cooler? stock cooler not great performance and noise wise, might be worth getting a small cpu cooler to keep things running quiet and cool. Loudest thing in build will be hard drives a lot of people move these into nas systems when they get to liek 4-5 Hardrives etc. might be an upgrade path further down if you end up getting more hard drives.

edit3: depending on which case you get grab couple of extra case fans, will help keep hard drive temps down, dont wanna cook your data :P
 
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