Thinking of building my first HTPC

nigelhooper · 21 Jan 2009 at 22:08

I am thinking of building my first HTPC and would appreciate some pointers, I've got about £400 to play with. Here are some things I want and don't want:

Want:
The case must be DVD player sized
It must be reasonably quiet
It must have a remote control
It must have HDMI output
DVD drive
Reasonably low power consumption
Must be upgradable

Dont need:
An operating system (feel free to suggest one, but exclude from the build cost)
Blu ray drive
Video capture card
Fancy audio output (its only going to connect to the TV)

Given this, what would you buiild for around £400?

nigelhooper · 25 Jan 2009 at 23:01

This is what I have come up with so far

Thanks for your suggestions so far. Here is what I have come up with:

Antec Fusion Remote HTPC Case - Black (No PSU)
Antec EarthWatts 380W PSU
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G Micro-ATX
AMD Athlon 4850e or 5050e 45W
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB)

Questions:
1) How quiet is the Antec Earth Watts? Would I be better of with some with a bigger fan? eg the OCZ StealthXStream 400w or the Seasonic Silverpower 400W PSU

2) Should I go with the Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB or the Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB?

3) Is the Corsair ok? It looks a good deal

4) Can you recommend a quiet DVD drive?

nigelhooper · 26 Jan 2009 at 14:51

Xee - Thanks for picking up on the motherboard. I'm leaning towards the Samsung myself, mainly because I already own one, but partially because of some rumoured problems with the Western Digital Green Power.

nigelhooper · 3 Feb 2009 at 20:26

Is anyone who has bought the Black Antec Fusion case (with remote) able to turn off the computer via the remote control and the power button on the front?

I have connected the red & black power switch cable from the LCD to the motherboard and left the other power switch cable that links to the button on the front unconnected. I can power on from the remote but not off. If I plug the other power switch cable in the button on the front works but I obviously lose the remote.

There is a diagram in the manual that seems to suggests I should plug the other cable into the back of the LCD, but the connectors on the back of my LCD look completely different.