Raw power needed but...

[TheBigCheese]

...it has to be silent.

I am in the early stages of planning the ultimate HTPC, it's going to be used for gaming, video encoding (including 1080p video) and used as a PVR (waking up from sleep to record).

Because of what I want it to do there has to be some real grunt to it and so I am thinking of an I7 920.

Am I right in thinking that the encoding power of the 920 far exceeds even the top AMD chip?

I have been considering overclocking it as well to try and get some more speed out of it, I have never overclocked anything before so unless there is an idiot proof guide I was considering buying one of OCUKs preoverclocked bundles.

However as it will be an HTPC I don't want to be hearing it whirring, so if it is overclocked is has to be as near silent as possible.

So...

Is the I7 920 the best chip to be looking at?
Is it easy to overclock for a complete noob?
Is it possible to have it running overclocked virtually silently on air?

I look forward to any replies, setting the rest of the system I am pretty happy with but this is a bit of a stumbling block for me!

Many thanks

 

[TheBigCheese]

Thanks for the quick replies

I haven't set a budget as yet, more thinking what I will need and go from there, probably around £1000 I suppose. I will be harvesting an 8800GTX GPU from my current machine so that's a small saving.

Hmmm, thinking about it I don't suppose it matters if the machine makes some noise while it is encoding, it's just when we will be watching films / TV etc. that obviously we won't want it humming away.

I was thinking of the Antec 1200 case, the one with the 200mm fan in the top. I use Antec 900s currently and find they work brilliantly. Reading a review of the 1200 it seems to keep case temperature around 20-22 degrees which sounds good to me!

Whilst I like to think of myself as reasonably bright and would probably attempt overclocking with a bit of guidance I definitely don't trust myself with water cooling, so while I can certainly see the benefits, it's not for me.

Would it still be very quick at encoding if I kept the processor at stock speed? I was looking on THW but the CPU comparison charts either don't include Handbrake which I will be using or seem to be a bit out of date, which don't help me with decision making.

 

[TheBigCheese]

Ha ha, I haven't said about what HDDs I plan to put in it yet

It will be a gaming machine as well as an HTPC, I want the whole works in one box which is why I would be spending extra on it.

It certainly won't be on 24/7, I wouldn't entertain the idea if it did have to be, I'd just buy a new PVR.

I've read about (I believe it's called) S3 sleep mode, basically it will shut the PC down completely (fans and all) until it needs to wake up to record something then it will shut down again. I'll be getting an SSD as my boot drive to aid that. HDD wise I'm looking at Samsung 1.5TBs (several of) as long as they are able to stream full HD content without any slowdown or choppiness.

The 8800GTX will be used as the graphics card and will come into play when I'm gaming.

Is this for a HTPC or some mutant hybrid machine?

It's a complete all in one machine...should be fun