HTPC build

[coppersherpa]

Hey,

this should be all the info suggested in the system builder's sticky

So I am planning on building a HTPC which can connect to a 1080p plasma and possibly a SD tv, the build will be in the next 2 months, live in US. I intend it to do video cap, hd clear qam and analog tv, put hulu and similar on the tv as opposed to laptops. Also this would be a general media server and backup for work I do on my laptops. BD would not happen now, but at some point in the future when the drives come down in cost. No gaming/OC to speak of is planned. I expect some processor intensive tasks, encoding, possibly other stuff, but in recording and watching hd at the same time would be good. Overall I want it to do all these tasks easily as it will be undoubtedly taxed more heavily in the future.

Budget, right now Im at ~1200, can go a little higher if compelling reason.

I feel comfortable w/ Intel/nvidia so have been looking mostly at those.

Hardware I have,
IDE dvdrw, benq litescribe
various ide HDDs - mostly I will move data off of these onto the sata.
Displays, Plasma, possibly CRT/ or SD tv.

Hardware to purchase:
Case: Silverstone LC17
mobo:GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775
CPU: Q6600 with Scyte mini ninja
GPU: ASUS EN9500GT TOP/DI/512M - native hdmi is a plus for me as I need audio through the tv
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX 450W
memory: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
HDD: Hitachi 750gb, 7200rpm sata - there will be more hdd in the future, if I have 4 or 5 is the psu good for that?

TV caputure: AVerMedia AVerTV Combo PCIe
OS vista ultimate 64
I/O Logitech DiNovo - just looks cool and highly functional. maybe a wii mote for kicks but thats unimportant.


Future hardware:
BD in some form, but not for a while
more hdds as needed


Any thoughts would be appreciated. Mostly as this is my first shot at this a compatibility/'have I made any just plain bad choices' check is what is needed. I put this together through reading a bunch of random guides / reviews and similar so Im not sure I have a really coherent system ( my guess is the gpu seems underpowered compared to the rest, but do I need more for this purpose?)

Thanks, Copper

 

[ther00kie16]

Everything looks good. I see you've done your homework in selecting parts. If you are not overclocking it'll probably be ok, but you may want to think about going to 45nm. If you haven't thought about it, the ninja mini will fit in that case. PSU should be plenty but if you are unsure you could try Earthwatts 650W or a higher rated Corsair. The modular 520HX would be nice in a small HTPC case. And if you buy from buy.com don't forget 5% off coupon or additional cashback from live.com.
As for video card, any reason why you dislike ATI? They have better cards currently.
There are also 8500gt and 9400gt which are ~$25 cheaper than the 9500gt you listed. If you don't need any power beyond HD material, those should be plenty. Furthermore, these ATI cards are cheaper and any of them will handle HD. Many of the low end ones are even passively cooled, which is a plus for HTPCs. And if you want power, the 4650/4670 at $70 is the same price as your 9500gt and the 4670 will beat even the 9600gt and 9600gso.

 

[Denithor]

If there's no gaming to be done on this computer, just go with a G45 motherboard and forget the discrete video card completely. Less heat/power consumption/noise are all helpful for HTPC.

Asus P5QL-EM $100

Integrated VGA/DVI/HDMI, four USB ports, eSATA ports, two PCIe x1 slots, PCIe x16 slot for video card (you can always add one later if you want to game on the bigscreen) and one PCI slot for your sound card (if necessary).

Q8200 (2.66GHz, 4MB cache) $195

Cooler & lower power than Q6600 with virtually the same performance at stock speeds. Check out the review over at xbitlabs.

 

[coppersherpa]

Thanks for the input so far.

I think Q8200 does make sense, particularly it running cooler.

With the heat sync, I did look at TRUE and similar big ones but saw they wouldnt fit. For the sythe mini ninja I believe I saw that the fan has only 3 pins, so it will run at the same speed the whole time. If I am correct in this a fan that can be ajusted by the mobo would be preferable for this application I am sure. Any recs on that? also push pull? or is that overkill?

In terms of the mobo and GPU, I want to leave a little room for me to be wrong about my level of interest in gaming on this rig. I am a console gamer for the most part, but in case I am wrong I like the idea of a full ATX board b/c of the flexibility it provides. Also, I do not dislike ATI, ive just been looking at nVidia b/c thats all ive ever owned and I know their numbering. That said, if ASUS EAH3450/DI/256M can really do the job, which the new egg reviews suggest it can handle 1080p video/areo and similar that would be fine.