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High Perf. Water Cooled HTPC

P

Pacal

Member
Greetings,

I'm in the process of accumulating parts for a Home Theatre System. Ideally, I would like to consolidate my personal computer and the mess I call a home theatre into a minimalistic setup that doesn't skimp on performance or aesthetics. I've spent a long time deliberating on the parts and components and now I'm looking for some more objective advice on the setup. Feel free to pick this apart...

Concerns
a. Need a minimum of 750Watts for this setup
b. Silverstone Strider 1kW PSU is the biggest (size😛ower) this case will accomodate
c. Uncertain about the quality and durability behind the Strider series of PSU's
d. Cooling capacity with the dual 80mm Black Ice II Micro Radiator
e. Zalman's HD160XT compatibility with Vista Media Center
f. CLabs X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card versus Built-in Supreme-FX Sound Card
g. Display quality and gaming capacity on a 40" 1080p Display (Need SLI setup...?)
h. HDMI to DVI converter: any degradation or limitations with these converters?

Components
Zalman HD160XT HTPC Chassis
Silverstone Strider 1000W
Asus Striker Extreme
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
Geil 4GB (4x1GB) DDR2-1000 PC8000
WD Raptor X (x2)
EVGA GeForce 8800GTX ACS3 768mb SLI
Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeGamer
Lite-On DVD+/- 20x Burner SATA (or) Samsung DVD+/- 18x Burner SATA

Water Cooling System
Danger Den Black Ice Micro II Radiator
Laing DDC-1 Ultra Pump
Reservoir (Anything that will fit)
Danger Den 8800GTX Water Block
Danger Den TDX LGA775 CPU Water Block

Display System
Samsung 1080p 40" LCD (Primary Display)
Samsung 226BW 22" LCD (For Privacy)

Audio System
Bose Lifestyle 38 (Represents best combination between size and performance)

Regards,
Pacal
 
I don't watch much TV nor am I fan of television programming these days, but no dignified HTPC should go without some type of TV Tuner. Anyone kept up on the technological trends in the arena of TV Tuners for HDTV/HDMI setups?

~Pacal
 
Don't the sammy 40"s have problesm with PC input? something about no overscan bypass? Do you already own all of this?

What do you already own, what's tenative?

A seasonic m12-700 should handle all of that with ease
 
a. Need a minimum of 750Watts for this setup
Click to expand...

You don't need anywhere near 750W for the setup you're describing unless you meant you wanted two 8800GTXs in SLI. You're at somewhere around 350W of actual load, tops. Maybe a little higher if the waterpump is hooked to the PSU.

WD Raptor X (x2)
Click to expand...

For an HTPC you're going to want a LOT more storage than that. I'd be thinking something like a 4x500GB RAID5.

Bose Lifestyle 38 (Represents best combination between size and performance)
Click to expand...

I'm sure you'll get plenty of other comments about Bose being overpriced crap...
 
Zalman HD160XT HTPC Chassis
dunno, haven't heard about or seen

Silverstone Strider 1000W
overkill. get a seasonic

Asus Striker Extreme
Extreme... waste of money. The P5N32-E SLI is the same board without goodies for like $100 less. The P5N32-E Plus is $50 even cheaper, and actually better due to it using the 650i chipset in a hybrid configuration, and the probllems with the 680i chipset.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
WTF? Why?... Unless you do folding, most of the time you're going to make very little usage of all four cores.

Geil 4GB (4x1GB) DDR2-1000 PC8000
Another waste.

WD Raptor X (x2)
Absolutely stupid... get an Areca ARC-1231ML and like 5 to 9 Seagate 320GB drives and build a RAID6 array. massive storage, blazing fast, and fault tolerant

EVGA GeForce 8800GTX ACS3 768mb SLI
insane in a HTPC. Absolutely no need for this with a 1920x1080 resolution. Get just one.

Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeGamer
Look at the CMI8788 cards, like AuzenTech Meridian and the HT Omega Claro.

Lite-On DVD+/- 20x Burner SATA (or) Samsung DVD+/- 18x Burner SATA
Icky, get one of the NEC 7170 series.


Water Cooling System
Danger Den Black Ice Micro II Radiator
Laing DDC-1 Ultra Pump
Reservoir (Anything that will fit)
Danger Den 8800GTX Water Block
Danger Den TDX LGA775 CPU Water Block

hwlabs.com my friend.
http://www.hwlabs.com/gen2/gtx/gtx480.htm

--
Display System
Samsung 1080p 40" LCD (Primary Display)
Samsung 226BW 22" LCD (For Privacy)

get a Sharp LC46D92U or wait of the Samsung 81 series.

--
Audio System
Bose Lifestyle 38 (Represents best combination between size and performance)

ick. Get an Outlaw 990 PrePro and a Outalw 7200 7x200w

--

I highly suggest you get a 19" rack. Then you can get rackmount UPS system, ATX computer chassis, surround sound processer, amplifiers, light controllers, etc
 
Ribbon13,

Don't the sammy 40"s have problesm with PC input? something about no overscan bypass? Do you already own all of this?
Click to expand...

I can't confirm this based on my preliminary research, but the possibility of such means I need to do some additional digging. What large format displays scale best as PC displays?

What do you already own, what's tenative?
Click to expand...

Everything is open to revision. I haven't purchased anything as of yet. Considering the potential size of this investment -- I don't want to be anything less than certain when I go to buy as I'm sure you can all identify with.

A seasonic m12-700 should handle all of that with ease
Click to expand...

I was'nt familiar with the brand until you made mention of it. I'll have to do some reading, but a general search revealed some interesting things about the product.


Thanks for stopping by,
~Pacal
 
Matthias99,

You don't need anywhere near 750W for the setup you're describing unless you meant you wanted two 8800GTXs in SLI. You're at somewhere around 350W of actual load, tops. Maybe a little higher if the waterpump is hooked to the PSU.
Click to expand...

I calculated my maximum power usage using the power consumption calculator over at http://extreme.outervision.com. According to their calculator, my power usage tops out at 710W with everything on the mobo in use. My intention was to "future-proof" with 300 additional watts of power, but I can understand how this might be excessive considering the mobo potential.

For an HTPC you're going to want a LOT more storage than that. I'd be thinking something like a 4x500GB RAID5.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. I have every intention of attaching additional storage whether through eSATA or NAS, and probably 2-4 500GB drives in the chassis itself depending on space availability.

I'm sure you'll get plenty of other comments about Bose being overpriced crap...
Click to expand...

I've heard this a time or two before, and I'm not going to try and defend Bose; but I can't seem to find a 5.1+ setup of this size and quality. I'm more than willing to consider alternative suggestions, but I don't want massive cabinet speakers. I do agree that the Bose systems are overpriced; but are they really crap and if they are, what are you comparing them to?


Thanks for stopping by,
~Pacal
 
ribbon13,

It'll take me a little while to read through (research) and digest all the information in your last post, but I wanted to thank you for being frank. I love it when somebody can one-up my configuration with something more creative and reasonable. I'll be getting back to you soon.

Thanks,
~Pacal
 
Originally posted by: Pacal
Matthias99,

You don't need anywhere near 750W for the setup you're describing unless you meant you wanted two 8800GTXs in SLI. You're at somewhere around 350W of actual load, tops. Maybe a little higher if the waterpump is hooked to the PSU.
Click to expand...

I calculated my maximum power usage using the power consumption calculator over at http://extreme.outervision.com. According to their calculator, my power usage tops out at 710W with everything on the mobo in use. My intention was to "future-proof" with 300 additional watts of power, but I can understand how this might be excessive considering the mobo potential.

For an HTPC you're going to want a LOT more storage than that. I'd be thinking something like a 4x500GB RAID5.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. I have every intention of attaching additional storage whether through eSATA or NAS, and probably 2-4 500GB drives in the chassis itself depending on space availability.

I'm sure you'll get plenty of other comments about Bose being overpriced crap...
Click to expand...

I've heard this a time or two before, and I'm not going to try and defend Bose; but I can't seem to find a 5.1+ setup of this size and quality. I'm more than willing to consider alternative suggestions, but I don't want massive cabinet speakers. I do agree that the Bose systems are overpriced; but are they really crap and if they are, what are you comparing them to?


Thanks for stopping by,
~Pacal
Click to expand...

Check out Orb Audio

Also
http://intellexual.net/speaker5.html
 
Seasonic M12-700 review by jonnyguru
Seasonic PS-M12-700

Xeon 3070
and use the savings to get two of these:
Patriot PEP22G6400EL
and eventually up to for of them for 8GB. Get a quad-core later when their power consumption comes down a little.

Koolance getting thier asses handed to them by the best radiator company out there

Sharp LC46D92U info. Free shipping from ABT too... didn't notice that before.
Samsung 81 anticipation thread

HT Omega - Claro Plus
or
Auzentech Meridian
connected to
Outlaw 990 PrePro
via
Dayton glass optical
powering

Behringer A500
Vifa/Dayton Kits

Dayton Titanic MKIII kit

Fsck bass shakers. Not that you brought them up, but I thought you mike like this technology: Tactile transducers

Areca RAID6 == fastest and most reliable with a single driver letter. Once you have one, you'll never turn back. The reason you don't hear em suggested much is their initial cost. For example, for an entry level array:
$768 - Areca ARC1231ML
$320 - 4 x Seagate
$110 - AMS DS-3141SSBK

Kinda of expensive, but you have so much you can do:
Add a battery backup unit, this will allow you to turn on write-back caching and increase performance:
Upgrade the DDR2 ECC module. This increases general performance and dramatically increases the likelyhood of cache hit (1600MB/s peak speed. A Raptors top STR is 83MB/s for example)
Get another AMS enclosure and add more hard drives giving you more space and speed.

A high end array would be like this:

ARC1261ML
BBU
Cache
Housing. Up to 4 of them.
4 Population per house
 
YOyoYOhowsDAjello,

Many thanks for the references. Those Orb Audio speakers look fantastic, but I didn't see them in the lineup of alternative setups. Do you have any first hand experience with Orb Audio's products?

Thanks for stopping by,
~Pacal
 
Ribbon13,

Asus Striker Extreme
Extreme... waste of money. The P5N32-E SLI is the same board without goodies for like $100 less. The P5N32-E Plus is $50 even cheaper, and actually better due to it using the 650i chipset in a hybrid configuration, and the probllems with the 680i chipset.
Click to expand...

I've heard similar comparisons made about the P5N32-E SLI and the Striker EX, but this is the first time I've heard anything about the P5N32-E Plus and 650i hybrid configuration. Could you elaborate a little on the 650i hybrid versus the 680i chipset and associated problems?

~Pacal
 
Here is an excerpt

The northbridge is based on the nForce 650i unlike the 680i found on the Striker Extreme, however the southbridge is an AMD NF590 southbridge providing ten USB 2.0 ports and another PCI-Express x16 slot. The 650i is still regarded as a great overclocker considering the success people have been getting with the vanilla P5N-E SLI board, and the chipset still supports future 1333MHz FSB CPUs.

Asus has been smart in adapting the standard two x8 PCI-Express channels in the nForce 650i northbridge into a single x16 channel, and then letting the other x16 channel on the southbridge take up the second graphics card slot for SLI. The northbridge and southbridge communicate through a standard hyper transport link of 2000MT/s so has plenty of bandwidth to cope and the southbridge contains all the features of the corresponding Intel version.



The P5N32-E SLI Plus is approximately the same price as the P5N32-E SLI. The difference being that the non-plus uses the 680i northbridge, but sacrifices the all solid state capacitors for a mixture between electrolytic and solid caps. The cheapest we found the P5N32-E SLI Plus at the time of writing was £133, but prices seem to vary quite a bit upwards of this, so as always make sure you shop around. For £130ish it seems like a great buy, but some places are selling it for around £150 which stretches it into being "expensive", considering the competition.

The vanilla P5N-E based on the 650i northbridge, but uses the older and less feature-rich southbridge with dual PCI-Express x8 slots instead of x16s. This can be bought for around £50 less than the cheapest P5N32-E SLI Plus, so while the P5N32-E SLI Plus is an absolute bargain compared to the Striker Extreme, it is still a lot more money than the vanilla 650i motherboard you can buy. Having said that, that extra £50 buys you the Striker Extreme base, all solid caps and a far better southbridge: so the value is still strongly maintained.

In comparison the Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi AP and Gigabyte GA965P DS3/4 can be had for a little cheaper, while the Asus Commando and Gigabyte GA965P DQ6 are a bit more expensive. However the P965 chipset doesn't feature unlinked memory and CPU bus clocking as found on NVIDIA's nForce 650i/680i series. Because of this fact, the P965 boards have much better memory efficiency, but Intel's Core 2 Duo processors are not dependent on memory bandwidth as much as tight memory timings, which the P5N32-E SLI Plus is very capable of doing.
--

speaking of memory timings. here's a thread about what that means

The Xeon 3060 == E6600 and Xeon 3070 == E6700. That line of Xeons is the same silicon, just tested longer with tighter tolerances, and aiming for lower voltage operation.
 
Ribbon13,

You recommended a Xeon 3070, but i can't seem to find any distinguishing features that would contrast it from the Intel Core 2 Duo E6700. Could you elaborate?

Intel Xeon 3070
Dual Core | 2.66Ghz | FSB 1066Mhz | L1 32KB+32KB | L2 4M Shared | Tech 65nm | $350

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
Dual Core | 2.66Ghz | FSB 1066Mhz | L1 32KB+32KB | L2 4M Shared | Tech 65nm | $320

~Pacal

Ribbon13,
The Xeon 3060 == E6600 and Xeon 3070 == E6700. That line of Xeons is the same silicon, just tested longer with tighter tolerances, and aiming for lower voltage operation.
Click to expand...

PS> Seems you caught my edit 😉
 
Ribbon13,

Yeah I was reading the anticipation thread and I'm inclined to wait. The sharp does represent a quicker and cheaper alternative to the new 81 series technology, but 46" is ginormous. I'm not sure I could functionally use anything larger than 40" before I have to start panning the wall to see everything ;p

You posted a link earlier for a BFG Tech GeForce 8800GTX w/DD Water Block that went missing after your edit -- is this the unit you were recommending: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143079

I dig the EN-8950B00, but the Zalman HD160XT is so hot looking!! http://www.zalmanusa.com/

I have a 19" 7ft Hubbell Rack in the garage right now, and the Zalman HD160XT would sit fine on it but I see no rackmount accessories for it. I would have to use a shelf which I have two of. Are there any 19" racks out there designed for home theatres that aren't so aesthetically blinding? I dig the UPS you linked -- how often have you come to rely on it and what region are you located?

I'd love nothing more than to have a fast and fat storage array, but don't WD Raptor series represent the best performing drive for the local system? Or were you suggesting the RAID6 Areca storage array be used as the primary...?

What was it about the Lite-On and Samsung DVD+/- burners that you found so unattractive?

~Pacal

PS> That in-wall setup is awesome, will have to review their products at depth.
 
Ideally, you want to be seated at a distance of three times the visible height of the display.

After reading a review, I second guessed the idea of a preblocked GPU. There's a lot going into designing a refined stable hydrochiller. That card's flow resistance would be a disparity. That and how easily will it be to integrate water with the HD160XT? Does it (Zalman) come in black?

http://www.avrev.com/equip/rackmounting/index.html

It's a pampered UPS at that too... heh. I've used it many times during power outages. I can game for a good half hour if I keep my backlight down to 20 on my LCD.

This one time, all my neighbors were without power. So I fired up my generator and played UT2K4 with my default config (Onslaught with 31 bots, gets crowded and insane) at about 'half power.' That's around 107db(A) average, but 112db(C) in the sub/bass section

edit: fixed the Vifa/Dayton link in the post above

Yeah, I was suggesting that you use the array as your primary. The array will devastate the raptor like an angry lightning bolt. Be sure to use NOD32 anti-virus and Comodo firewall though... it's a lot of data, security becomes very very important. And there's still user error.
 
If you're going to go with a 40" or larger 1080p, and eventually an HD drive, the nVidia 8800 series should be reconsidered:
Although Nvidia claims this is all-new silicon, the new part still won?t have the second-generation PureVideo HD engine that?s on the lesser 8600 GPU, which means that the cheaper part will be much more capable in terms of playing Blu-ray and HD DVD movies. Nvidia tells us this doesn?t matter, because anyone buying an 8800 Ultra will surely have a powerful CPU, and so they won?t mind that the Ultra doesn?t offload as much of the decode work from the central processor. But we think you will care that unlike the 8600, the Ultra won?t be capable of displaying those movies at the native resolution of your 30-inch monitor because it doesn?t offer dual-link HDCP decryption.
Click to expand...
Link

Native rez of 1080p is 1920x1080. At a resolution this low, a second 8800 is a waste. The true power of 8800 SLI only becomes obvious at higher resolutions. Besides, if you go SLI with the 8600 series, you free up a PCI slot.

Note: do NOT go with the 8600GT SLI...a single 8600GTS is either almost as fast or faster (depending on the game), and a lot less expensive.

Unless you're going to be doing a lot of encoding, quad-core IS dual-core. Until more apps and (any) games are written to take advantage of three or more processors, those extra two cores will just sit idle.

Most reviews say the Lite-On drives are quite noisy...just about any model. Not optimal for an HTPC unless the box is going to be located in a different room. I've had numerous Plextors, an old 5x Sony, my current main drive is an NEC, and I just hooked up a Lite-On DVD-ROM drive the other night for a cheap computer I'm building for a friend...DAMN, that thing is loud. Painfully so.

 
The Zalman HD160XT comes in black and silver and is an all aluminum chassis with a 7" touch screen display mounted on the front. Its the largest HTPC chassis out there that I could find and its also probably the nicest looking too boot. However, there is a limited amount of internal real estate for a water-cooling setup. Ideally, I had hoped to have a seperate or external system in a rack-mount form that would handle all the water cooling for this system and perhaps others, not unlike what koolance is doing here:

http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=28_42&products_id=372

The Zalman HD160XT has room for an internally mounted heat-exchanger no larger than 80x160mm or a dual 80mm radiator. There may be additional space behind the PSU along the right hand side of the case for an even larger radiator, but until I have the thing in front of me, its mere speculation.

How do you rank the many GeForce 8800 cards out there? Looks like EVGA is leading the way.

~Pacal
 
I dunno... I don't run nVidia cards. ATI always looks better. DailyTech. Anyway, yeah EVGA has the warranty crown. If you want a card to get to waterblock, they are the way to go.

as far as lite-on... they disappointed me too much in the past now.. and the 7170 has firmwares
http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/en/Optiarc-AD-7170A/
Since the post above mentioned plextor, thats what I run: PX-755SA

im sure you could just use an empty rack shelf to make your external water setup. It would just be a black space on the rack... and probably a hell of a lot more elegant than if you attempted the same with a tower chassis.
 
Originally posted by: Pacal
w00t,

Thanks for stopping by w00t. What's your brand or setup of choice in the audio department?

~Pacal
Click to expand...

I am not a speaker guy myself so others may be able to help you better. I just know Bose doesn't make good speakers rather they make everyone think they do.

Sorry
 
If your going with a 5.1 setup with a receiver you don't want a X-Fi. It would be better to get something like the X-Mystique because it can encode everything into 5.1 DD through a digital connection, therefore you'll only have to route one cord into your receiver for sound. Theres also another card on the way from Auzentech I think that has EAX functionality and DD live encoding.
 
Originally posted by: WraithETC
If your going with a 5.1 setup with a receiver you don't want a X-Fi. It would be better to get something like the X-Mystique because it can encode everything into 5.1 DD through a digital connection, therefore you'll only have to route one cord into your receiver for sound. Theres also another card on the way from Auzentech I think that has EAX functionality and DD live encoding.
Click to expand...

ribbon13's suggestions for soundcards should be great options for hooking up to a receiver or separates.
 
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