HTPC Build

[Sentrosi2121]

So, a friend of the family approached me asking if I know anything about building PCs. I answered back that I know a thing or two. He then asked me how much a HTPC would normally run. Conservatively, I answered back that it could be as low as $500 or as much as $3000, depending on your demands. After talking a bit with him he told me that he wanted to go out and get a HP HTPC. Balking at that I said that I could probably build you one that will have less junk in it than the HP one. He then pretty much commissioned me on building his next PC, a Home Theater PC.

Now here is the challenge. I've always build gaming rigs and, after doing some research into the world of HTPC, I am beginning to see there is a different mindset with those. You don't necessarily need a fast CPU or blazing fast video card. But, you do need to have almost whisper quiet operation along with various add on cards other than your main Video Card.

As with everything on the Internet, you get 4 people saying one thing about one card and 6 others saying the direct opposite. Some people find an install sucks but others with the same components find it easy as hell. Some cards don't work well with Media Center Edition and others work flawlessly.

This is the morass that I've dug myself into.

Basically, my questions boil down to the video cards, as you can see. I need a good HDTV card and a good PCI-X video card to be paired together. I take it if I use ATi's HDTV card I won't be able to use nVidias 6800GS card, is this the case? The requirements of this PC are that it receive HDTV signal (he has a 50" HDTV) and that he is able to burn DVDs. These are the components I've selected so far and your opinion certainly counts.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811163054
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813152053
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103535
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820220037
http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16835118112
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16827131351
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16827131351 (Thinking of putting these in a RAID 1 array, thoughts?)

Also, I'll need a good quiet power supply for this.

 

[Zim Hosein]

Basically, my questions boil down to the video cards, as you can see.

Not having built a HTPC yet, I will offer an opinion on video cards. Stock, "most" are audible because of the cooling solutions the manufacturers choose to use. IMO, choose a video card that fits your budget give or take $30.00 and then go to http://www.arctic-cooling.com and find a VGA cooler that fits your chosen video card. It's the best of both worlds IMO.

As for a quiet PS, choose an Antec TP 2.0:

http://www.antec.com/us/pro_p_TPII.html

I hope this helps a bit Sentrosi2121

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

It's PCI-e, not PCI-X.

Can you give the name of the components so we all don't have to click 7 links?

Have you checked out the HTPC area of AVSforum yet? Lots of info in there.

Are you sure this is worth the trouble? He's probably going to expect you to fix it whenever something goes wrong with it if you build it.

 

[Goi]

If he is simply using it to watch DVDs, just about any PC you can build now will suffice. However, if he's into ffdshow resizing and playing of HD media , etc, a good video card and a fast CPU(intel's better in this area and dual core helps) is a must.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Components are as follows:

Silverstone SST-LC17 case
Chaintech VNF4 Motherboard
AMD Athlon64 Venice core 3200+
Patriot 1Gb Memory (2x512Mb @ 3-3-7)
Zalman CNPS7000b-ALCU 92mm cooling fan
2x Plextor PX-716SA DVD Burners
2x Western Digital Cavair RE 250GB SATA150 Hard drives

And I think it's worth it. I enjoy challenges as it's the only real way to learn things. You challenge yourself and you make mistakes along the way. You learn from those mistakes and power on through. And I'm already used to having people either PM me on forums about their PC trouble and also call me up to diagnose the problem that way.

Besides, I wouldn't be posting this up here if I didn't think it would be worth it.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

You don't need dual burners.

A single burner or a burner and a DVD-rom would work.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Alright, talk to me about video cards and HDTV. I'm probably going to go with, for the main one, a GeForce 6600GT w/ passive cooler. He won't be gaming a whole lot. But for the HDTV card, I'm stumped.

Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

What's the res on the TV?

 

[Sentrosi2121]

He never gave me that information and I don't know what kind of TV it is. Paint me a broad stroke as to what I need to be looking for.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Sentrosi2121
He never gave me that information and I don't know what kind of TV it is. Paint me a broad stroke as to what I need to be looking for.

If it's a 720p TV, that's an equivalent res of 1280x720, so a medium card would be fine for light gaming.

If it's something really high res like 1080p (1920x1080), you're going to want to get him something more powerfull if he's doing some gaming on it.