spec me a media centre pc

psalliss

psalliss

psalliss

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hi im a bit out of touch with the current hardware. im basically wanting to build a media pc for the lounge mainly to be used for playing dvds and music, but will also be used for the occasional games and surfing. ive currently got a denon 3910 dvd player and am debating selling it and using the media pc to play all dvds. intend to store all my dvds on the hard drive. so am wanting a setup where the dvd playback quality is similar if not better than my denon.
dont need a monitor.

not sure on price but as cheap as possible to do what i want really, all suggestions welcome.
 
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How important is gaming? For HTPCs I usually recommend microATX 'boards with integrated AMD or ATI graphics. This is just peachy keen for DVDs and HD content but it's not so good for gaming. If gaming is a priority that's OK, it'll just jack up the price as you'll need a discrete graphics card.
 
How's this?:
howsthisoc8.gif
 
how about this or is it totally over the top??

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Western Digital Caviar SE16 750GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD7500AAKS) £89.99
(£105.74) £359.96
(£422.96)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
GeIL 4GB (4x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GB24GB8500C5QC) £189.99
(£223.24) £189.99
(£223.24)
EVGA GeForce 8800 Ultra SuperClocked SILENT 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (768-P2-E887-AR) £414.99
(£487.61) £414.99
(£487.61)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD2500AAKS) £38.99
(£45.81) £38.99
(£45.81)
Asus DRW-1814BLT 18x18 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - Retail £19.99
(£23.49) £19.99
(£23.49)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series 7.1 Sound Card - Retail £76.99
(£90.46) £76.99
(£90.46)
Antec Fusion HTPC Case - 430HE Watt PSU £97.99
(£115.14) £97.99
(£115.14)
Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre 2005 Remote Controller £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66R-00838) £97.99
(£115.14) £97.99
(£115.14)
Sub Total : £1,533.86
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £270.69
Total : £1,817.50
 
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It's way OTT, IMO. I thought you wanted it to be as cheap as possible?! :p

The Ultra is a waste, especially as its replacement is just a month or so away. Looking at my spec you could have a whole HTPC for less that that graphics card costs. You don't need 4 GiB RAM to watch movies and recorded TV shows.

Have you decided on a budget?
 
naw havent thought of a budget at all as you can tell. what is the replacement? as you can tell im way out of touch. what graphics card do you suggest then as a step up from what you suggested in the post above that will do what i want, as i say still want to be able to play latest games occasionally at reasonable speeds.
what about the processor and board as d prefer intel?

also what about the hard drives is there a better suggestion, want as much space as possible but £400 is probably more than i want to spend in some ways also would they would in raid 5. apologies if im wrong in thinking this but you can connect more than 2 drives on sata cant you, in still on ide. cheers
 
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Ermm - that PSU will die on that setup anyway look at getting atleast 700watts for all that. and as for your HDD choice, get the 1TB drives since they have a much larger cache.

For cases look at the silverstone webpage, zalman hd160 - at the moment they are the best around.
 
hows this any better, what about the cpu and motherboard any better suggestions? possibly one with oneboard graphics that i could use for now then add better card later if i feel i need it.

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Zalman HD160 Home Theatre PC Enclosure - Silver(£185.64)
Zalman ZM600-HP Heatpipe Cooled 600W Modular PSU(£82.24)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail(£176.24)
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard(£82.24)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000340AS)(£455.88)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66R-00838)(£115.14)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD3200AAKS)(£51.69)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GB22GB8500C5DC)(£99.86)
Samsung SH-S203NRSMN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black,Silver,Beige) - Retail(£22.31)
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS SuperClocked 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (640-P2-E825-AR)(£264.36)
Total : £1,550.81
 
The Gigabyte GA G33M-S2 might be a good choice then. It has G33 integrated graphics and will fit in nicely with the rest of the build.

The price on that hard disk is absolutely ridiculous. You could do a 4-disk RAID of 500 GiB drives for less than that. How about a Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 instead?
 
i know the hard drives are whats increasing the price in some ways but storage is the key, but could look at 4 500 gig ones as you say.

can anyone suggest a board that has a decent onboard graphics and sound then thats full atx please.

also am i right in thinking that an intel chip is better for a htpc than amd
 
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I don't really know of any such boards. Why full ATX? How many expansion slots of which type do you need?
I figured you'd need
1 PCI-e X16 for GPU
2 32-bit PCI for sound card, capture card
 
just prefer a full atx really plus want a full size case to be able to fit all the hard drives in.
in reality id only need the pcie for the gpu as im going to use the on board amp and connect it to my amp.
 
have took onboard a lot of what people where saying and am now possib
ly looking this direction. can always add a dedicated card later if required and will add a nas my book when cash allows for the storage. what do you guys think?

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (£173.89)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66R-00838)(£115.14)
Samsung SH-S203NRSMN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe (£22.31)
Shuttle XPC SG33G6 Deluxe Aluminium Barebones System - Intel Core 2 Duo (£284.34)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (£99.86)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS(£70.49)
Total : £776.55
 
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