Building a HTCP and Lite Gaming PC *UDATED*

[DesiPower]

I currently need to replace two computers, one permanently attached to HDTV and the other for little bit of weekend gaming. Have been debating several ideas here in many threads and reading assassin's guide. Will be using some existing components, target is to stay below $1000.

Here's the configs, all set to order tonight or tomorrow morning. Please review and let me know how it looks, if I am going terribly wrong anywhere.

HTPC
CPU - i3-2100 - $129
Mobo - Intel H67 mATX $99
Ram - Crucial Ballistix 2 x 2GB - $39
Ram - G.SKILL NS 2 x 2GB - $39
Case - Existing Sonota - $0
PSU - CORSAIR CX430 - $20 ($20 MIR)
HDD1 - Existing Seagate 250GB
HDD2 - Existing WD Green 1TB
ADDED DVD Drive - LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - $21
______________________________________
Subtotal - $287
Subtotal - $308


Gaming PC
CPU - i5-2400 - $189
CPU - i5-2500k - $209
Mobo - Intel H67 mATX $99
Mobo -ASRock Z68 PRO3 $125
Ram - Crucial Ballistix 2 x 2GB - $39
Ram - PNY XLR8 1600 2 x 2GB - $29 ($20 MIR)
Case - Antec 300 - $55
PSU - Existing Antec 650W - $0
HDD1 - WD Black 640GB $61
HDD2 - Seagate Green 1.5TB - $60
Graphics - PNY GTX 550 Ti - $130 ($20 MIR)
Graphics - ASUS GTX460 - $120 ($30 MIR)
DVD Drive - Existing CD/DVD Burner - $0
______________________________________
Subtotal - $633
Subtotal - $659

Total 920 + ($40 MIR)
Total $967 + ($70 MIR)

Ordering everything together to get 1 year interest free financing! :biggrin:

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

I'm thinking of the same thing, but I really like the Z68 chipset for the HTPC. There's the quicksync thing, the ssd caching and it support more clocking options...and I think the price is the same...

 

[Slugbait]

You're not going to record HD or watch optical discs on your HTPC?

 

[mfenn]

You can do better on the storage and GPU of Rig 2.

Samsung F3 1TB $65
6850 $146 AR

 

[DesiPower]

You're not going to record HD or watch optical discs on your HTPC?

No, no recording but I do want to watch DVD sometimes and maybe Blu-ray in the future, thats why I opted for more expensive sandy bridge built.

 

[DesiPower]

Was about to order last night but decided to sleep over it, woke up this morning and things had changed, I was having to pay an extra $12 for shipping and RAM was out of stock, lost the will to order, wanted to wait a few more days but then though about the countless hours I send each day obsessing over my shopping care more than Gollum obsessed over the ring. So decided to go ahead and order by noon. Thats the deadline, no further delay.

Changed a few things too on the Gaming PC.
1. Bumped the CUP to i5-2500k
2. Bumped to ASRock Z68 PRO3 (I hate buying anything besides Intel or ASUS but what the hell.. I wanted Z68 and had a limited budget. Any suggestions? GIGABYTE any better?)
3. Bumped Video card to GTX 460 based on this guru3d article. Seems that its better than GTX 550Ti and $10 cheaper, 6850 is a bit above my price range, my initial range was 100, have to draw the line somewhere...

 

[JBDan]

Was about to order last night but decided to sleep over it, woke up this morning and things had changed, I was having to pay an extra $12 for shipping and RAM was out of stock, lost the will to order, wanted to wait a few more days but then though about the countless hours I send each day obsessing over my shopping care more than Gollum obsessed over the ring. So decided to go ahead and order by noon. Thats the deadline, no further delay.

Changed a few things too on the Gaming PC.
1. Bumped the CUP to i5-2500k
2. Bumped to ASRock Z68 PRO3 (I hate buying anything besides Intel or ASUS but what the hell.. I wanted Z68 and had a limited budget. Any suggestions? GIGABYTE any better?)
3. Bumped Video card to GTX 460 based on this guru3d article. Seems that its better than GTX 550Ti and $10 cheaper, 6850 is a bit above my price range, my initial range was 100, have to draw the line somewhere...

I think you did really well here. As anxiety often plays a role in my PC/hardware purchases (I'm OCD x 2) taking your sweet time will pay off I promise you. You'll be content with what you got vs questioning your decisions. That said, I think ASRock is solid as a rock I just did an HTPC build with one. Stick with the ASRock I say. Excellent CPU choice a pure thoroughbred it doesn't get much better for gaming. The 460 is good bang for buck

 

[fffblackmage]

2. Bumped to ASRock Z68 PRO3 (I hate buying anything besides Intel or ASUS but what the hell.. I wanted Z68 and had a limited budget. Any suggestions? GIGABYTE any better?)

That's fine. If you want Intel or Asus, I don't think you can avoid having to pay a bit more than the ASRock.

BTW, there's a shell shocker deal for G.Skill Ripjaws X 2x8GB DDR3-1600 for $70 later today on newegg.com, from 3:00PM - 5:59PM PT. Also, I would try to avoid DDR3 ram that doesn't run on 1.5V or less.

 

[DesiPower]

That's fine. If you want Intel or Asus, I don't think you can avoid having to pay a bit more than the ASRock.

BTW, there's a shell shocker deal for G.Skill Ripjaws X 2x8GB DDR3-1600 for $70 later today on newegg.com, from 3:00PM - 5:59PM PT. Also, I would try to avoid DDR3 ram that doesn't run on 1.5V or less.

What kind of complications/issues can 1.65v present? is it serious? I can switch to G.SKILL NS 2 x 2GB. I really don't need 8GB...

 

[DesiPower]

Darn my preferred account, my account was deactivated, I have to wait 2 business days now before I can buy... . dangit

 

[mfenn]

What kind of complications/issues can 1.65v present? is it serious? I can switch to G.SKILL NS 2 x 2GB. I really don't need 8GB...

You'll be putting more stress on the memory controller, potentially shortening it's life. There is plenty of good 1.5V RAM out there (like the G.Skill), so there's really no reason to buy 1.65V anymore. The rest of your changes look good.

 

[Morg.]

Please consider buying something that is made for HTPC as HTPC, like E350 from AMD, it is the perfect fit for your purpose, it uses much less power, costs much less and does exactly everything you expect from that box.

Antec 100 Good enough for gaming (it has all the important features like the 300).
GTX460, lol ? get a cheaper CPU and an HD6950 2gb if you're going that road.

There is no risk in using 1.65v ram, just less performance @ 1.65 volts

Gigabyte is much better than AsRock, shave off 25 bucks there, z68 or w/e makes the cost there is useless for your config.

You buy an i5-2500k but no cooler ? lol

For the HDD's, drop the two of em, seagate is pure crap and the other one is not going to make much difference.
Get ONE 2TB WD caviar green, you'll get 100MB/sec in seq.write, that hdd is perfect and reliable.
With the money you now saved, get yourself a cpu cooler like mugen2revb /cm212+ and a real gfx like 6950 2gb (and no there is not currently any other option that is remotely as interesting as an oc/unlock 6950).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Please consider buying something that is made for HTPC as HTPC, like E350 from AMD, it is the perfect fit for your purpose, it uses much less power, costs much less and does exactly everything you expect from that box.

Antec 100 Good enough for gaming (it has all the important features like the 300).
GTX460, lol ? get a cheaper CPU and an HD6950 2gb if you're going that road.

There is no risk in using 1.65v ram, just less performance @ 1.65 volts

Gigabyte is much better than AsRock, shave off 25 bucks there, z68 or w/e makes the cost there is useless for your config.

You buy an i5-2500k but no cooler ? lol

For the HDD's, drop the two of em, seagate is pure crap and the other one is not going to make much difference.
Get ONE 2TB WD caviar green, you'll get 100MB/sec in seq.write, that hdd is perfect and reliable.
With the money you now saved, get yourself a cpu cooler like mugen2revb /cm212+ and a real gfx like 6950 2gb (and no there is not currently any other option that is remotely as interesting as an oc/unlock 6950).

You can't be serious. Advising someone to purchase an E-350 rig, only to pair it up with a 6950 2GB card? Firstly, that rig would be horribly CPU-limited for gaming, secondly, the PCI-E slot on those E-350 boards are only x4.

And Caviar Green drives suck for main HDs, well, kind of, I do have a 1TB Caviar Green in my HTPC, but I don't game on it.

Edit: And Intel Sandy Bridge rigs should NOT use 1.65v RAM, it can damage the memory controller of the CPU over time. 1.65v is OVER the spec limits for voltage for the memory controller on those CPUs.

 

[Morg.]

Lol you misread a bit I think, he needs TWO pc's, one HTPC (E350) and one Gaming PC -> i5-2500k + 6950 2gb

Caviar Green do NOT suck for main HD's if theyre 2TB, mine do 100 meg/sec seq write, more in seq read and I play anything without any annoying loading times. Test it you'll be impressed how much a "green" drive can be quick.

1.65volts is manly. and it's fine.

Look at the link here, some conservative guy tries to pretend he knows stuff about OC while saying SB can be killed by 1.42v and is in danger @ 1.38v -- while the only thing that kills SB below 1.52v is thermal nuking - which happens before you get to 1.52v on air anyway.

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=21199063

And even that guy confirms that 1.65v is just fine - and it ought to be : 1.575v + 10% = 1.73v , 5% would be perfectly 1.65v .. those specs aren't tighter than 5% . wouldn't call that a spec otherwise (i.e. spec=conservative=there's some margin beyond that although it is uninsured).

The REAL spec for that CPU is :
vCore 1.52v
VCCSA 0.971 V
DDR3 1.575 V
VCCPLL 1.89 V

And, as this is a spec, you can feel more or less safe to play around in the 5% around these areas, giving you more or less not risky specs (although it's out of warranty, that excess 5% is more than highly likely to be available in order for Intel to be able to guarantee CPU usage within the official spec).

That's more or less :

vCore 1.596v
VCCSA 1.019 V
DDR3 1.65 V
VCCPLL 1.98 V

So rest assured, with your puny air cooler, there is no way you will remain within thermal compliance and breach electrical compliance at the same time.

BCLK is chipset /mobo related and should not be considered a CPU spec.

 

[DesiPower]

@Morg's #12.

OK, I WANT to go with i3 on the HTPC, there are SEVERAL reported cases all over the internet about laggy videos with E-350s. I want something which can, without any doubts, play ALL kind of videos including AVCHD, improperly coded flash based videos, H.264, and ripped BRDs. Also I want it to be future proof HTCP for 5 years atleast. So no discussion there, no compromise there.

Antec 100 is more expensive and has less fans compared to 300 at newegg.
I DO NOT need a high end video card, I am not a serious gamer anymore and the last thing I will spend on is a fancy high end video card. And then I am going with Z68 + "k" hopefully Virtu will help me out there a bit

I checked ASRock and Intel's QVL list, both suggest 1.5v so I am sticking to it.

Gigabyte Z68 is NOT 25 "bucks" cheaper than ASRock, atleast not in US, where the eff do you live??

I have Scythe Ninja with Silverstone Fan and retention Kit so no worries there - "lol"

One must have serious challenges to believe Caviar Black and Green have same performance and then, over that, measure a disks performance based on "sequential" "write" speed. SSDs are crap, NO?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Lol you misread a bit I think, he needs TWO pc's, one HTPC (E350) and one Gaming PC -> i5-2500k + 6950 2gb

Ok, I admit, I missed that part.

Caviar Green do NOT suck for main HD's if theyre 2TB, mine do 100 meg/sec seq write, more in seq read and I play anything without any annoying loading times. Test it you'll be impressed how much a "green" drive can be quick.

As a main OS drive though? 5400 RPM can be painful, if you need to do any multi-tasking at all.

1.65volts is manly. and it's fine.

Look at the link here, some conservative guy tries to pretend he knows stuff about OC while saying SB can be killed by 1.42v and is in danger @ 1.38v -- while the only thing that kills SB below 1.52v is thermal nuking - which happens before you get to 1.52v on air anyway.

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=21199063

And even that guy confirms that 1.65v is just fine - and it ought to be : 1.575v + 10% = 1.73v , 5% would be perfectly 1.65v .. those specs aren't tighter than 5% . wouldn't call that a spec otherwise (i.e. spec=conservative=there's some margin beyond that although it is uninsured).

The REAL spec for that CPU is :
vCore 1.52v
VCCSA 0.971 V
DDR3 1.575 V
VCCPLL 1.89 V

So you are suggesting that Intel's own specs for RAM voltage... are incorrect? Do the specifications themselves say that they are subject to +/- 5% variance? Or is that just something that you are tacking on yourself, because you believe it is so.

Personally, I trust Intel's own specs, and by your own admission, 1.65v RAM is OUTSIDE of Intel's specs.

At the very least, even if it works for three years, it voids the warranty on your CPU.

 

[mfenn]

Ok, I admit, I missed that part.

As a main OS drive though? 5400 RPM can be painful, if you need to do any multi-tasking at all.

So you are suggesting that Intel's own specs for RAM voltage... are incorrect? Do the specifications themselves say that they are subject to +/- 5% variance? Or is that just something that you are tacking on yourself, because you believe it is so.

Personally, I trust Intel's own specs, and by your own admission, 1.65v RAM is OUTSIDE of Intel's specs.

At the very least, even if it works for three years, it voids the warranty on your CPU.

:thumbsup::thumbsup: Just because something works for a suicide run, does not mean that it is what you want to use 24/7.

 

[mfenn]

OK, I WANT to go with i3 on the HTPC, there are SEVERAL reported cases all over the internet about laggy videos with E-350s. I want something which can, without any doubts, play ALL kind of videos including AVCHD, improperly coded flash based videos, H.264, and ripped BRDs. Also I want it to be future proof HTCP for 5 years atleast. So no discussion there, no compromise there.

:thumbsup: It's always better to have the CPU horsepower that you need to decode something rather than rely on GPU offload. If you decided that you wanted to stream Netflix HD, you're be outta luck with Zacate.

:thumbsup: Glad that you're not easily swayed by nonsense about "manly" voltages. :awe:

One must have serious challenges to believe Caviar Black and Green have same performance and then, over that, measure a disks performance based on "sequential" "write" speed. SSDs are crap, NO?

Seriously. At times like these, I can only shake my head and link copiously to Anand's SSD articles where he explains the benefits of random I/O performance.