HTPC/Light Gamer - Final Build Check

Behold

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Right after looking and looking and looking I have finally settled on what I want out of my HTPC. So short background before I roll the spec out.

The main uses for this are for using it as:
  • A front room HTPC for Video playback direct in to my home AV.
  • I will also use it for racing simulations (rFactor or similar, Maybe some FPS games too)
  • Also run a couple of vPC's for some other functions. I have settled on XBMC as my weapon of choice as a main centre.
  • And as a front room PC when needed
  • On top of this I want to run 2 smaller Thin PC's in my upstairs bedroom for videos and in my landing to run music using my touchscreen as a interface.
So after realising that a proper HTPC case is not big enough Im looking at the following:

Case - Coolermaster Silencio 550 Black Mid Tower Case (No PSU)
£65.99

Fully sound proofed and large enough to cover all I need. Also it fits on it side im my cabinet with a true front to back airflow should perform well.

Insides-

Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 PRO CPU Cooler

£25.00
XFX AMD Radeon HD 6870 Double D 1024MB GDDR5
£149.99

OCZ Agility 3 SATA III 2.5" 60GB Solid State Hard Drive

£159.98 x 2 to run raid 0 for speed

Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

£39.98 X 2

Asus P8P67 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) Motherboard


£119.99 - With Bluetooth for my keyboard
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2nd Generation Intel® Core? i5 2500K 3.30GHz Socket LGA1155 - Retail.

£179.99 - i5 so it runs cooler and keeps the room quiet

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Modular Power Supply

£60.98

Any comments Recommendations and alterations considered Hoping to buy all this end of the week.

Thanks

Antony
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I have experience with pretty much all those parts, and most of them are great "bang for buck" components. The parts that I would have a think about are the SDD's, the case and the cooling.

OCZ Vertex III and Corsair M4's are the drives to buy, with the Corsair's probably having the edge.

Freezer Pros were considered good a few years ago, but you can get much better now for the same price. I can recommend these for a similar price, but there's plenty of others to choose from: Zalman CNPS10X Performa

Coolermaster Silencio cases are very nice quality and quiet cases, but they have limited airflow, which in itself will cause your fans to run more and therefore create more noise. Don't overestimate how much noise they will stop, though I don't want to dissuade you from buying one as they are great cases (I've got one) :)

You also put 'X2' next to the 8GB RAM? Are you planning to buy 16GB? Unless you are a graphic artist working with massive image files or something like that, then noone needs 16GB RAM, even if it is good value.
 
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Thanks for the reply.

The SSD's What is the main benifit on the Vertex? There very similar spec???

As to the Case. My issue is finding a full case that is not too tall (440mm is my maximum to fit a hi-fi cabinet) Also the look is simple and does not look like a PC when in my cabinet. I have struggled to find anything else like it. I forgot to put on the list that a recomendation on a 120mm fan would be good to add to the intake. If room and need I could always fashion another on the rear using the spare PCI exits.

Finally the reasoning for the extra memory is due to running a few vPC's. I want to setup a few enviroments for for various projects. Although they will not be used all the time when they are they will all be on.

Further advise would be great.
 
Some of those prices are a little high, the CPU and graphics card definitely are so shop around. They are good parts though. Maybe look at Z68 chipset motherboards for the extra features but I am not sure how many have bluetooth
 
On the memory front - you might look at a set of four chips instead of 2 sets of 2 as the set of four will all have been matched which is slightly better. Probably slightly more expensive, though.

On the SSD front I assume the RAID0 is for resilience and the SSDs are for speed? I don't think that RAID0 adds any speed, and it is the most wasteful of the RAID configurations to add extra resilience. My 64Gb Corsair M4 is blindingly fast (7.9 on Windows Experience which is as high as you can score) and allegedly more reliable than the other similar SSDs, plus an extra 4Gb for the same price which is not to be sneezed at because W7 Home Premium SP1 64bit has sucked up over 25Gb of my drive already.

On the MoBo front - not sure why you are going P67 when the Z68 offers all that a P67 has without any limitations on overclocking or onboard graphics use.

Finally, I am not sure which bits won't fit into a SilverStone HTPC case. The only issue I think I have with my LC17 is that I have to use a lower profile CPU cooler if I overclock (but there are a few good candidates), and there is also a LC13 build thread floating about at the moment.

Cheers

LGC
 
Thanks for the reply.

The SSD's What is the main benifit on the Vertex? There very similar spec???

As to the Case. My issue is finding a full case that is not too tall (440mm is my maximum to fit a hi-fi cabinet) Also the look is simple and does not look like a PC when in my cabinet. I have struggled to find anything else like it. I forgot to put on the list that a recomendation on a 120mm fan would be good to add to the intake. If room and need I could always fashion another on the rear using the spare PCI exits.

Finally the reasoning for the extra memory is due to running a few vPC's. I want to setup a few enviroments for for various projects. Although they will not be used all the time when they are they will all be on.

Further advise would be great.

The agility and vertex are very similar spec, but so is the price so considering the rapidly falling prices and advances in SSD's I go for the Vertex based on potential resale price alone.

And yeah VM's is one of the few situations which will use loads of RAM, so 16GB is probably worth it.

Btw I have no experience of that motherboard so no comment on that, and also I didn't check your prices, but I did buy the same RAM for £30 a few weeks ago.
 
If you wanted to save a bit of money, and gain some flexibility, you could lose the second SSD and go for a full 3.5 HD, 500gb and up. This gains you far more storage and TRIM. As for your case you could go for a cube type lianli v354 maybe. And do you really need an I5? would an I3 do instead?
ALso To save more shekels and maybe some noise (6770)
Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6770 Vapor-X 1024MB GDDR5 | 11189-01-20G
 
spacemanc said:
The agility and vertex are very similar spec, but so is the price so considering the rapidly falling prices and advances in SSD's I go for the Vertex based on potential resale price alone.

And yeah VM's is one of the few situations which will use loads of RAM, so 16GB is probably worth it.

Btw I have no experience of that motherboard so no comment on that, and also I didn't check your prices, but I did buy the same RAM for £30 a few weeks ago.

Yeah I'm not gonna buy at that price I will do my searching. Took a while to find the vertex in 60gb. Only 9£ extra.
 
LittleGreyCat said:
On the memory front - you might look at a set of four chips instead of 2 sets of 2 as the set of four will all have been matched which is slightly better. Probably slightly more expensive, though.

On the SSD front I assume the RAID0 is for resilience and the SSDs are for speed? I don't think that RAID0 adds any speed, and it is the most wasteful of the RAID configurations to add extra resilience. My 64Gb Corsair M4 is blindingly fast (7.9 on Windows Experience which is as high as you can score) and allegedly more reliable than the other similar SSDs, plus an extra 4Gb for the same price which is not to be sneezed at because W7 Home Premium SP1 64bit has sucked up over 25Gb of my drive already.

On the MoBo front - not sure why you are going P67 when the Z68 offers all that a P67 has without any limitations on overclocking or onboard graphics use.

Finally, I am not sure which bits won't fit into a SilverStone HTPC case. The only issue I think I have with my LC17 is that I have to use a lower profile CPU cooler if I overclock (but there are a few good candidates), and there is also a LC13 build thread floating about at the moment.

Cheers

LGC

Raid 0 has NO resilience and essentially doubles the speed with little to no overhead on space.

As to the p over the z I have no need for onboard graphics. The price change for the ports and bits I get seemed enough not to bother with the z boards.
 
STdrez625 said:
If you wanted to save a bit of money, and gain some flexibility, you could lose the second SSD and go for a full 3.5 HD, 500gb and up. This gains you far more storage and TRIM. As for your case you could go for a cube type lianli v354 maybe. And do you really need an I5? would an I3 do instead?
ALso To save more shekels and maybe some noise (6770)
Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6770 Vapor-X 1024MB GDDR5 | 11189-01-20G

Storage is not an issue as I have 8tbs raid 5 in a Nas to put on all my files and storage that both change regularly or need little speed.

As to size of case. I want to not limit myself in the future. I will run some hefty stuff at times but noise then is likely to not be an issue. Mostly when it's idle I need it quiet. If I can hear it watching or playing I need to turn the sound up ;)
 

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