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HTPC/Gaming Build
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08-11-2009 8:24pm#1
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PSU is terrible. Not sure about the motherboard, or that... sound card? ...either. And a HD4650 is a bit weak for gaming. The CPU is practically overkill in comparison
What resolution monitor/TV do you have? What do you want to do with this PC regarding HTPC usage? What speakers are you going to hook up to it? Do you need BluRay or a TV card as part of those HTPC duties? Do you use Photoshop? (AMD no likey!) Does the PC need to be small and/or look like AV equipment to fit in wherever its going to go? I'll run a template system by you once you start answering some of those
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PSU is terrible. Not sure about the motherboard, or that... sound card? ...either. And a HD4650 is a bit weak for gaming. The CPU is practically overkill in comparison
What resolution monitor/TV do you have? What do you want to do with this PC regarding HTPC usage? What speakers are you going to hook up to it? Do you need BluRay or a TV card as part of those HTPC duties? Do you use Photoshop? (AMD no likey!) Does the PC need to be small and/or look like AV equipment to fit in wherever its going to go? I'll run a template system by you once you start answering some of those
Thanks for the reply
First off i all ready have placed the order with www.Hardwareversand.de put haven't sent payment to them yet.Is there any problem with canceling a order with them once placed?Haven t used these guys before.The HTPC will be used with a 720p infocus x9 projector on a 120" screen and am planning on using a 22 inch screen as well which i havent got yet(will do later).Speakers are 5.1 surround Diamond 9.1 with a onkyo amp.I think i should have included blu ray and tv card in his build,been using a ps3 as a blu ray player.I dont us photoshop at all.ideally i would like the pc to look like part of the av equipment.I could up the budget a bit to 800ish perhaps better graphics card and psu. Thanks for your help bit of a newbie with this
Barry0 -
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Whoa! That's almost certainly overkill. You probably won't be playing games at 1080p (the projector is only a wonderfully-manageable 720p and most 22" screens are 1650*1080, and I'd recommend a good one of those over a pricier yet more mediocre 22" 1080p) and the HD4870 is a hot card. Hot GPUs and tight little HTPC cases don't mix so well. I was actually thinking more along the lines of a HD4770 for this build: excellent at 720p, good until you hit the magic 1080p barrier and very conservative with power usage and the resulting heat output. Oh, and nowhere near as expensive as the HD4870!
Anyway, here's a sample build, but its just a template as there's a plethora of issues to clear up. Over €625 shipped including OS:
Breakdown:
CPU: Agonised over this or one of the quads. Getting a Phenom with its meaty L3 cache and equally meaty pricetag is only really vital if you're doing a lot of file compression or work with crypto. The X4-620 is slower and pricier and is based on the old stepping. The X4-630 is nice, but a bit pricey at €100. So I went cheap on this one and got a fast tri-core instead. Nearly as fast as the X4-620 in multithreaded stuff anyway, and faster with programs with less than 4 threads :P Very pertinent in a gaming build!
Mobo: Got this as there'll be fewer BIOS issues and there's little price difference in DDR2 and DDR3 nowadays. It all depends on your sound needs really, if you need TOSLink you'll be spending more money and probably be going down to AM2/DDR2 again... As for form-factor... stuck with ATX as that means more expandability - you'd only have 1-2 slots left on an mATX mobo because of the graphics card. I prefer mATX for HTPCs but you can run out of room and many of the better mATX cases are low-profile, so no room for a graphics card
RAM: See above.
Graphics: Think I covered this already
Sound: None. Yes, that's right, none. Checked up on the Agrippa, looks like a distinctly underwhelming rebadged low-low-low-end Auzentech (the "real" ones are a lot pricier!) with bass issues and no gaming facilities (if you actually need EAX or anything of the sort). And it misbehaves in hardware mode to boot. Do you want a proper, audiophile-grade soundcard? Get ready to dig deeper in that wallet. If not, just stick to (good) integrated audio on the mobo. That depends on how you want to connect the speakers though - mobos with TOSLink outputs usually command a price-premium, especially ATX mobos where its considered more of a premium feature (mATX mobos consider it a normal mid-range item, being more HTPC-centric in the first place).
HDD: What do you think you need? 1TB drives have gone back up over €70 now, so I put a 500GB in the sample.
Optical: Always important: Does your (HT)PC need a BluRay drive? If so, does it also need to burn DVDs? The former puts a big dent in your wallet and ticking both boxes means you need two seperate drives, a BD-ROM and a DVD-RW. D'oh. So make absolutely sure you need them beforehand!
PSU: Easy one this. The CPU has a fairly average power requirement (70-90W with all cores fully loaded), the GPU somewhat less (50W+ with a gaming load, insanely low for a gaming card!
). Add all the other stuff together and you only need a good low-end PSU to keep things on an even keel. Better a quality PSU with some overhead than a cheaper, rubbish PSU with a higher number on the box but less overhead in real life! :P
Case: Just stuck with your previous choice. The nice black version seems to be AWOL And bear in mind that a) that thing is pretty huge in real life! and b) that little display is just a wee status LCD, not a proper iMon-type display macguffin. If you want one look at the Antec Fusion or rivals instead. Just bear in mind they're a lot pricier thanks to the neato iMon.
OS: Fine.0
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