Please Critique my spec :)

Dave FR PD130

Established Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
108
Reaction score
6
Points
29
Hi all,

I've wanted to do this for a while and finally I'm going to bite the bullet! I'd really appreciate it if you guys could take a look at my requirements/spec and suggest alternatives if deemed needed or suitable? Although I work in IT, it's been a LOOOONG time since I looked at building a PC from scratch, so if I've made a stupid mistake below I'd not be surprised! :laugh:

My requirements for my build are the below:
  • Blue Ray Playback 1080p
  • I assume a normal Blue Ray drive can rip Blue Rays? I appreciate i'd need software but i have a lot of discs I'd like to backup and retain on HDD.
  • Audio would be handled by my Onkyo TX-NR609 so would need to go over HDMI and be uncompressed so the amp can do all the work
  • Not fussed about 3D video - gives me a headache anyway! lol
  • I'll be adding a cheap video capture card for CCTV recording with I'd leaving running pretty much 24/7, so would need to be man enough to record video and also play blue ray's at the same time
  • I've also made an Amblone (ambilight DIY controller) so the machine would also need to be able to be powerful enough to handle this software running while the movie is playing
  • I'd like it to be SATA 3 and include 2 x 2TB hard drives which I could setup as RAID1 or similar
  • I'd like USB 3
  • Ideally would like it to run fairly quiet...Xbox 360 is too loud, if that helps determine fans/psu requirements?

Draft Spec at present:

Case wise I'm still undecided but like the look of the Silverstone LC20B, so maybe someone knows of a good case similar to those? Price wise I'd like to keep it less than £100 for the case and PSU if possible.
 
I'd be wary of the Socket FM2 A4/A6, I don't think they've been reviewed yet so if they turn out to be essentially single core CPUs (i.e. have 1 full piledriver module rather than 2 partial ones) they may be something of a lemon.

The memory looks rather expensive, DDR3-1866 is a good choice for the higher Fusion processors but you should be able to get it a tenner cheaper, and if you do stick with the A4-5300 that's limited to DDR3-1600 support I believe.
 
No real advantage to sata3 with hard drives .. might be worth sticking a SSD for Os and buffers. No experience with fusion procs but do like the Celeron/Pentium's.
Could save on the cooler and expensive ram..
the Blackgold tv tuner cards incorporate video capture hardware (just a thought..)
Streamcom cases or ???
 
Thanks for the replies guys :)

EndlessWaves - what do you mean by "if you do stick with the A4-5300 that's limited to DDR3-1600 support I believe"? Are you saying that if i use 1866 ram the CPU won't be supported by overclockers warrantee or by AMD etc?
I thought the choice of RAM was purely down to whether it is suited to the Motherboard? Excuse my ignorance if that's rubbish.

STdrez625 - funny you say SSD, i was literally just looking at their prices, with great temptation! lol. Thanks for the note on the Blackgold cards, I'll look into those.

I managed to find myself a bargain case in the end off ebay. Silverstone LC20B with PSU (not sure how good it is, but hopefully it's OK...Akasa 400w PSU AK-P400FG), either way for £41 plus postage it seemed worth a go :)

I'm sure I've read good things on here about the FM2 proc's etc, I've had good experience with AMD in the past too, so quite like the idea of another.

I'll do some more digging and post back with final choices, however if anyone has any more info I'd appreciate the advice :)
 
I thought the choice of RAM was purely down to whether it is suited to the Motherboard? Excuse my ignorance if that's rubbish.

It is a few years out of date. Memory controllers were moved onto the CPU on the AMD Athlon 64 chips and by Intel a few years later when they discontinued the Core 2s in favour of the current range of celerons/pentiums/i3s/i5s/i7s.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom