Building home theater PC - comments please

silverside

Hi
I am thinking of building a cube-type PC for listening to music and playing games/dvds as well as some coding and Word/Excel

what do you think of the following spec
Biostar 200N barebones PC from ultim8pc.co.uk
Fully integrated Barebones System - NVidia Crush 18G+MCPT Chipset - Accepts AMD Athlon XP CPU, 333MHz FSB & DDR2700. Dual onboard AGP graphics,5 ch. Sound, 10/100 NIC,4xUSB2,2x1394, 2 SPDIF out & 2 audio ports,1xserial ports,1AGP & 1 PCI slot. 200W PSU

and get all the following from komplett/dabs
Athlon XP 2600+
2 X 256 3200 RAM
Seagate Barracuda 160GB
Radeon 9600 128MB with DVI and TV out (do I really need this or would the onboard AGP be ok?)
Pioneer DVR 06 DVD/RW
Wireless KB/mouse (Which make?)
IIyama 17" TFT 16ms refresh

XP Pro
Showshifter for CD and DVD replay - will get remote control as well.

Any comments? Should I pay the extra for an Athlon 64 or p4? Should I overclock it?
Is it worth going for a full gig of ram?

I've never built a PC before but it seems straightforward enough. Anything else I could add bearing in mind there is only 1 AGP and 1 PCI slot along with 1 5.25 external drive bay? Any other thoughts? I kinda like the thought of having a little box on my desk to store all my music and play around with.

Kevok

There may not be enough power in a 200W PSU to run an Athlon PC with a Radeon. I'm no expert, but I would have thought that 300W would be minimum.

As for the KB/Mouse, personally, I'd go with Logitech.

silverside

thanx
another quick question
how much power/heat is used by hard drives. I see that the mobo supports SATA RAID so how about putting in 2 160GB hard drives, using them as mirrors until they fill up. Is this feasible?

Can you undo RAID without having to reinstall anything?

joePC

looks like a good setup................

Those Cube or micro ATX systems do heat up quite a bit, and are very fiddley to put together.

Dont use the onboard graphics if you plan on playing games, get the graphics card.

Go for a logitech Bluetooth mouse & Keyboard.

The hard drive will heat you fast in such a small PC, so stick with the one for the mo.

Thanks joePC

joePC

The case you picked sucks, go with shuttle....

silverside

what do you think is wrong with the case? It looks nice, is neat inside, is a bit cheaper than the shuttle, and has had good reviews.

zAbbo

shuttle has a proper mobo, you could for example go for a sn45g with a Athlon XP 2500+(barton) and some pc3200 ddr ram and o/c it to 3200+ speeds, future proof it like.

As for GFX, gofor Radeon with TV Out and maybe get a BOB remote for it.

I`ve built 2 shuttles recently, thumbs up.

There may not be enough power in a 200W PSU to run an Athlon PC with a Radeon. I'm no expert, but I would have thought that 300W would be minimum.

erk wrong

silverside

what is a BOB remote?
what do you mean a proper mobo? what is the difference between a barton and a normal 2600XP?

Shuttle is 100 euro more expensive I personally don't see the benefit but I don't have your knowledge. I also prefer the look of the BioStar (stealth panel).

where did you buy the cases?

Sorry if these are all basic questions

thanks

s.

Kali

what is the difference between a barton and a normal 2600XP?

Bartons are the new XPs. Thoroughbreds are the older ones. Double the L2 cache, and a higher bus speed are the two major differences, the 2500+ barton is also a very capable overclocker.

If your serious about building a "home theater pc" as opposed to a small box that'll sit in the corner and never do anything then I suggest you check out..
http://www.avforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=46

quarryman

yeah you have a home theatre pc down but say you want to use it for games, coding and excel. That's not really a HTPC.

Generally if someone wants to build a pc for playing movies, playing mp3s etc a common route is to buy a min-itx board and box. see here. These setups aren't suited to high performance but are lower power, low heat rigs. They can sometimes be cooled passively.

If you are buying a PC to do all of the above (which you are judging by the component list) then either get a midi tower or go for the Shuttle. Ultim8pcs prices are high and you can get a shuttle off www.overclockers.co.uk or www.ebuyer.com cheaper and with better performance.

whosurpaddy

hmmm something i saw on that forum kali linked to gave me an idea. does anyone know can u set power dvd (or a similar player) so that everytime u insert a dvd, to play a certain file before and after the dvd is finished? after might be a bit tricky as the disc never shuts itself down as such. im sure theres a way of playing a file before each viewing of a dvd but cant think of one of the top of my head.