Small and silent for the living room - help required please

SimonT

SimonT

SimonT

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Joined
15 Jul 2012
Posts
21
Hi,

Just finishing off decorating the living room and interested in having a small computer fitted beside the TV in order to have internet access and somewhere to store and watch movies from. Ideally it needs to be quiet and not give off any flashing LED lights or distractions.

I've only ever built some basic ATX systems before and never with AMD so the reason i've listed Intel. Totally open to going to AMD but unsure where to look and what to look at.

List so far:

Case: Raijintek Metis Black no window
PSU: Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular
Motherboard: Asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX
CPU: Intel Pentium G3220 3.0GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor
RAM: Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB

- No OS is required.
- Considering the Antec ISK 310 case. Is a 150w PSU enough for the above?
- Cost around £300-350 but can be moved
- Wifi required but never added before to any system so unsure
- Recommendations on wireless keyboards and a mouse would be appreciated too.

If i have a Windows 7 CD could i install this using an external CD drive once this system is assembled or would it not read from the USB that early on?

Thanks
 
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If definitely no gaming then how about an older AMD e350 mobo cpu combo

I have
Silverstone ML03 case
Asus E35 m1-1 deluxe
8 Gb Ram
SSD 64gb
2x2TB Hdds
60w Pico psu

Totally silent as no fans in use.

Or

AM1b-ITX mobo £30
AM1 5350 cpu £45
or similar

Keyboard I use is a Logitech K400 which has a trackpad
 
No issues here with mine. Has played anything I have thrown at it. Struggles with multitasking etc but rarely an issue as only used for downloading and playing video files - blurays, bluray rips, avi's etc
 
BBC iplayer would bring mine to it's knees if you used HD on it. Iplayer may have been updated to use the GPU since to change this. It also wasn't very slick if you were scrolling through a cover flow media library.
 
APEVIA X-Fit-100 Mini-ITX Case looks awesome IMHO, I would totally use it, if I were going to do it. I totally would do a machine to game on, if GPUs where single chips like CPUs & upgradable. Honestly that seems like it could do good if they did it. Plus they can put the memory on the chip also. So why are they not doing this, they could atleast do mobile GPUs for PCs like they have for laptops.
 
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Edward78 said:
APEVIA X-Fit-100 Mini-ITX Case looks awesome IMHO, I would totally use it, if I were going to do it. I totally would do a machine to game on, if GPUs where single chips like CPUs & upgradable. Honestly that seems like it could do good if they did it. Plus they can put the memory on the chip also. So why are they not doing this, they could atleast do mobile GPUs for PCs like they have for laptops.
Click to expand...

Reviews for that case are not good
 
Edward78 said:
Oh, ok then. Still the mobile GPU for PC or GPU on a chip like the cpu so it would be upgradable sounds cool. The PC mobile GPU might have a better chance though.
Click to expand...

AM1 would be the one to go for as you don't need to use case fans i don't on my AM1 build as the Am1 chip wont get hot enough.
 
Ok, i've been browsing a few threads and sites and come up with the below. Please could those who are more experienced than me let me know their opinions on this. Reasons for the spec are for longevity and performance if i use the components for anything more serious. I also chose that motherboard as need HDMI for the TV and it has built in WIFI as my router is not in my living room.

Case: Antec ISK300 Mini-ITX inc. 150w PSU
Motherboard: Gigabyte F2A88XN-WIFI AMD A88X Socket FM2+ Mini-ITX
CPU: AMD A6-6400K 3.90GHz Socket FM2 APU Richland Dual Core
RAM: Kingston HyperX 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel
SSHD: Seagate SSHD 7200RPM 3.5" 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
Optical: Samsung SN-208DB/BEBE Slimline DVD-RW SATA

Edited to add this into the mix:


Case: Antec ISK300 Mini-ITX inc. 150w PSU
Motherboard: MSI H97I AC Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard
CPU: Intel Core i5-4570S 2.90GHz Low Power (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail
RAM: Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)
SSHD: Seagate SSHD 7200RPM 3.5" 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
Optical: Samsung SN-208DB/BEBE Slimline DVD-RW SATA

Thoughts?
 
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I've just realised with the thread title saying silent and the recommendations for the AM1 CPU. I can live with low levels of fan noise if performance was available whenever needed.
 
Read that the fan on the PSU of that case is a bit noisy. Look for something without a fan, a PicoPSU for example.

I run my HTPC off a AM1 (running Windows 8) with a boatload of spinning HDDs and all off a 65w power adapter (though it spikes a bit above that during boot).
 
Kabini AM1 board in an Antec ISK 110 should do you fine - tiny case, 90W power brick included, can fit a pair of 2.5" drives too.
 
chippy08 said:
AM1 would be the one to go for as you don't need to use case fans i don't on my AM1 build as the Am1 chip wont get hot enough.
Click to expand...

I mean a separate chip. The prob. with the CPU+GPU chips it, you have to upgrade both & if Nvidia/AMD made GPU chips I would love to have the option of that. I have no idea why mobile GPU boards for reg. computers are not made.
 
i have this and it's brilliant:

MSI aM1 mobo
athlon am1 5350 cpu
4 gig of 1600 mhz ram
antec isk-300 case
480 gig ssd drive
windows 8.1 pro

runs really nicely and quick to. great for streaming and the case looks the nuts to.
 
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