New HTPC

Peerzy

Peerzy

Peerzy

Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2008
Posts
7,149
Right, moving house soon and want to sort out my HTPC situation. My current 'HTPC' spec is as follows;

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Power Edition Twin Frozr IV OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £219.95
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £181.99
1 x OCZ Agility 3 240GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-240G) £139.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £95.99
1 x Asrock Z77E-ITX Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £119.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £66.98
1 x LG CH10LS28 BD-ROM 10x BluRay ROM / DVDRW SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (Retail) £62.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Midnight Black £59.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £47.99

Which was purchased and built in June 2012, now the PC is fine and I've no problems with it but I've realised my needs have changed. The case is quite large for a 'HTPC' especially when it's sitting on the floor next to the TV stand.

When I purchased the above I was still doing a bit of PC gaming but I just don't have time for that anymore. The PC will be used for the following tasks / requires the following:

* Smaller the better, ideally so I could fit it in a TV cabinet
* Quieter the better, current PC is a bit loud at times
* Will be hooked up via HDMI to new 46" Samsung TV, will be used to stream online video and watch full HD rips / Blurays
* Basic internet browsing
* Storage of all my music, movies and files which will be shared across the network onto things such as WD TV Live
* Wireless would be a bonus but not required

As you can see, my requirements are pretty basic and my current PC is complete overkill. Providing the new PC can play full HD video to the TV I'm happy and would then like to focus on making it as small and quiet as possible.

Happy to buy prebuilt or build myself.

I will probably carry over my current HDD setup (240GB SSD and 2TB Samsung HDD) and the Bluray drive. Everything else will need to be new, no budget but I'm happy to pay what is needed. Wireless would also be a bonus. The rest of the components from my current PC that don't get used will just be sold on the MM. I had considered using the current CPU, RAM and Mobo but I'm not sure how they would fit into a really small case.

Mouse, keyboard and Windows license are already covered.

Any ideas or suggestions?
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-4330 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £109.99
1 x Seasonic 400w FANLESS '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply £95.99
1 x MSI H87M-G43 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £76.99
1 x Silverstone SST-ML04B Milo HTPC Case - Black £69.98
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G160C9K) £53.99
1 x Thermalright AXP-100 ITX & HTPC CPU Cooler £39.95
1 x TP-Link 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter (TL-WDN4800) £27.98
Total : £484.48 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Might still be overkill :p
But it will be oh so silent.

Or actually, looking at your current spec, i'd sell the GPU and the case and stick with what you have, paired up with the case RJC and I both specced, and a wireless adapter (internal or external)
What are the noisy parts of your build? I'm assuming the GPU which will be gone and the CPU cooler which you can replace. :)
 
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acme15 said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-4330 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £109.99
1 x Seasonic 400w FANLESS '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply £95.99
1 x MSI H87M-G43 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £76.99
1 x Silverstone SST-ML04B Milo HTPC Case - Black £69.98
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G160C9K) £53.99
1 x Thermalright AXP-100 ITX & HTPC CPU Cooler £39.95
1 x TP-Link 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter (TL-WDN4800) £27.98
Total : £484.48 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Might still be overkill :p
But it will be oh so silent.

Or actually, looking at your current spec, i'd sell the GPU and the case and stick with what you have, paired up with the case RJC and I both specced, and a wireless adapter (internal or external)
What are the noisy parts of your build? I'm assuming the GPU which will be gone and the CPU cooler which you can replace. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks guys, wasn't aware I could realistically re use most of my currently components. No idea what is noise, just general fan noise, all the fans are stock OEM ones that came with the components.

That case looks nice, I'm trying to picture the size - I assume it's around the size of a Sky box which is what I'm after.

So happy to keep the SSD, HDD, Mobo (which is already wireless) and CPU.

Should I keep the PSU or are the fanless PSU's any good - surely they run very hot? What cooler could I put on the CPU that would keep noise down.
 
The case is a little bigger than a sky box, there should be dimensions on the page I think. The main issue is that you have a full size DVD drive and a 3.5" HDD which means you can't really use one of the tiny HTPC cases unless you are prepared to replace your drives.

The fanless PSU's don't run very hot at all, as far as i'm aware the 400W fanless uses the same or very similar internals to an 800(ish)W Seasonic with a fan, so there isn't much strain on it.
 
RJC said:
The case has holes so the PSU can draw fresh air in, so I would keep the PSU as is and look at the Cooler linked above or a bit cheaper the one below:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-052-CM&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=2341
Click to expand...

acme15 said:
The case is a little bigger than a sky box, there should be dimensions on the page I think. The main issue is that you have a full size DVD drive and a 3.5" HDD which means you can't really use one of the tiny HTPC cases unless you are prepared to replace your drives.

The fanless PSU's don't run very hot at all, as far as i'm aware the 400W fanless uses the same or very similar internals to an 800(ish)W Seasonic with a fan, so there isn't much strain on it.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys, that makes sense.

I'm probably going to get a NAS as a backup so I could reuse the 2TB 3.5" HDD in that, the SSD is already 2.5" so I could purchase a 2.5" HDD to replace the 3.5" (providing you can get 2TB in 2.5").

Would 2x 2.5" HDD and a full size DVD drive give me options to smaller cases?

Happy to sell my current PSU and get a fanless one if it means having less noise, I'm guessing the PSU fan is probably one of the loudest.

EDIT: Actually I think I have a USB Bluray drive somewhere, and my PS3 will be connected to the TV so that can play movies. My main worry was just needing to burn CD's and DVD's but I can get around that with the USB drive as I rarely use the drive. If I scrap the idea of having a DVD drive in the PC can I still keep my components and get a much smaller case?
 
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