Need Advice on HTPC

[aigomorla]

As you all are probably aware, conroe will be released the end of this month or the beginning of next month, so i was planning on building a media center for my plasma. Money isnt a issue here, but at the same time i dont want to be buying something thats overpriced. I would however like your imput and any recomendation on parts. So far here is what i have come with.

Case: SilverStone LC16M

Motherboard: i975X " Badaxe" but i think im going to wait for a real approved conroe motherboard.

Processor: E6600, i want the 4mb cache, and i dont feel the need to pay more then 200 for a little more then 100mhz increase.

Ram: Up in the air at the moment, i dont know what ram works well for intel computers. I would need 2x1gb tho.

PSU: Seasonic 500W or 600W. I heard conroe's dont need as much juice so im thinking maybe 500W will be good enough. I want as quiet as possible tho

Hard drives: 1 x 500gig hitachi

Cooling: Zalman 9500 CPU VF900 GPU

DVD-RW: NEC, however i will be going for a blu-ray upgrade as soon as its available.

VideoCard: XFX 7900GT Vmod 1.4

Lastly, the plasma is rated at 1080p, resolution 1920x1080, so i know a beefy video card is probably needed, also i hope to be able to do some gaming on this screen if i get bored of watching movies and such. My main goal is, multi purpose usage, speed, quietness.

Thanks for your time~

Edit: taken advice adjusted.

 

[Slugbait]

Nice case. But if gaming is only going to be IF you get bored, your specs are overkill for MCE. Even your current rig without SLI is overkill.

My MCE box has a Pentium 3.06G with a half-gig, an IDE Caviar, and an FX5200...it does everything great. It's perfect for now, but I'll need a different card when I buy an HDMI TV. I would consider using your current components in your main rig as MCE, and use the specs you posted here as your new main rig.

Otherwise, I would go with nVidia over ATI. MaxPC did a shoot-out a few months ago, and ATI lost in every category when it came to MPEG playback.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Nice case. But if gaming is only going to be IF you get bored, your specs are overkill for MCE. Even your current rig without SLI is overkill.

My MCE box has a Pentium 3.06G with a half-gig, an IDE Caviar, and an FX5200...it does everything great. It's perfect for now, but I'll need a different card when I buy an HDMI TV. I would consider using your current components in your main rig as MCE, and use the specs you posted here as your new main rig.

Otherwise, I would go with nVidia over ATI. MaxPC did a shoot-out a few months ago, and ATI lost in every category when it came to MPEG playback.

That thought did come to conclusion also when i was putting together the parts for this new conroe system. I am aware about overkill, but i heard 1080p movies, and HD movies are going to require a lot of the machine. Also i was fortunate to get a legal/unopened copy of MCE.

*i actually buy the OS and not pirate it even tho MS is the devil!!*

But im looking for something that is fully vista compatible. I dont want to have something and later on have vista PWN me.

As for my desktop, i dont think i would want to shove everything into a little box like that. My current rig is setup in a armor and i spent god knows how many hours moding/cable management on it. Plus i have a feeling when i get this media box, my desktop will most likely end up as a guest computer / family computer / storage bank. Also its a PITA to drain my system and retube it. >.<

But thank you for telling me that nvidia is a better mpeg card. Im happy with my 7900GT right now, but since the X1900XT kicks the G71 processors butt in stock settings i was assuming a X1900 would be a better choice.

Anyhow anyone have an answer to my hard drive question???

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Anyhow anyone have an answer to my hard drive question???

In brief : no. For a longer answer - what are you intending to do with the box where harddrive performance is even going to be an issue ? With recording and playback you are limited to the rate of the video, which is going to be low enough for virtually any harddrive you can buy today to handle.

With that in mind, a raid-0 of raptors is close to the worst choice for a hptc box - loud, hot, and mostly unused potential.

Also, HTPC cases are almost universally very cramped - a water cooling solution could be highly problematic, as could full length video cards - I'd research that carefully before buying.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Velk

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Anyhow anyone have an answer to my hard drive question???

In brief : no. For a longer answer - what are you intending to do with the box where harddrive performance is even going to be an issue ? With recording and playback you are limited to the rate of the video, which is going to be low enough for virtually any harddrive you can buy today to handle.

With that in mind, a raid-0 of raptors is close to the worst choice for a hptc box - loud, hot, and mostly unused potential.

Also, HTPC cases are almost universally very cramped - a water cooling solution could be highly problematic, as could full length video cards - I'd research that carefully before buying.

The silverstone case allows a FULL ATX board to fit. Having a full ATX board will mean no problem dropping in a full video card. I was concidering the noise from the raptors but i was going to use insulators to muffle the sound. A friend of mine owns a car audio store and getting scraps of dynomat from installations isnt very hard. As for the reason on why i want to dual raptor it is because of bootup time. My rig has a bootup windows time of nearly 7 sec. From windows flash page to start button. I want close to the same time as that on my mediabox because i hate waiting for a computer to start up.

I would prefer to drop in the Zalman9500 and VF900 instead of watercooling however. I would hate to have a external box sitting outside the media box.

Also the reason of my choice in hardware is because, i have no leftover parts to construct a cheap mediabox. Since i am starting from scratch, building a cheap box verus a conroe box would only be a factor of 300 dollars. Pkus i have a really bad habit of getting greedy when it comes to computers, so i know if im not happy down to the last screw/molex head, i'll end up tearing that box apart and changing it at a later date.

Might as well do it right the first time and save money on upgrading 4-5months down the road is my theory.

 

[Slugbait]

You shouldn't consider boot times for an MCE machine, simply because you won't shut it down...if you do, it can't record your scheduled shows.

Besides, if you know how to optimize your BIOS and msconfig, you can significantly decrease the boot time, and the boot time difference between a standard Caviar and a Raptor will be barely noticeable. I think it was last month's issue of MaxPC that covered numerous tweaks that improve boot times. I've got Caviar in my main rig, and from windows flash page to start button, it's less than 10 seconds (I credit my EE proc for much of that perf). Two or three seconds wouldn't be worth it, imho.

There is one thing to be aware of with MCE: it sometimes crashes after about a week of constant running, recording, playback, etc, without a reboot. I wrote a batch file for mine that does an auto-reboot, and dropped it into Scheduler to recycle my machine once every three days at 4am.

Insulating the drives and/or case can cause excessive heat. If the box will be inside a stereo cabinet, don't bother. This is another reason you should just go with a single great big quiet drive instead of multiple, tiny noisy Raptors.

 

[secretanchitman]

wow speak of the devil. my family is doing the same thing...HTPC wise. even down to the E6600. i prolly will get the "high-end" asus core 2 duo mobo whenever it comes out.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
You shouldn't consider boot times for an MCE machine, simply because you won't shut it down...if you do, it can't record your scheduled shows.

Besides, if you know how to optimize your BIOS and msconfig, you can significantly decrease the boot time, and the boot time difference between a standard Caviar and a Raptor will be barely noticeable. I think it was last month's issue of MaxPC that covered numerous tweaks that improve boot times. I've got Caviar in my main rig, and from windows flash page to start button, it's less than 10 seconds (I credit my EE proc for much of that perf). Two or three seconds wouldn't be worth it, imho.

There is one thing to be aware of with MCE: it sometimes crashes after about a week of constant running, recording, playback, etc, without a reboot. I wrote a batch file for mine that does an auto-reboot, and dropped it into Scheduler to recycle my machine once every three days at 4am.

Insulating the drives and/or case can cause excessive heat. If the box will be inside a stereo cabinet, don't bother. This is another reason you should just go with a single great big quiet drive instead of multiple, tiny noisy Raptors.

thanks for your info slug~
I think i'll take your advice and go single HD. I dont have to worry that much about heat in the LC16. It has 2x80mm exhaust fans, also just got confirmed that the Zalman9500 will fit on it, so having the exhaust on the 9500 get dumped right to the rear 80mm's should keep this thing nice and cool.

I dont think i'll shove this thing in a cabnet. It will most likely sit on top, since the plasma will most likely be wall mounted. If i do then i'll definitely passive watercool it.

Anyhow im going to order the case/videocard/and psu tommarrow and test and store away til conroe comes out. If anyone should have any last min changes on my setup please feel free to critique.

Thank you~

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Velk
Also, HTPC cases are almost universally very cramped - a water cooling solution could be highly problematic, as could full length video cards - I'd research that carefully before buying.

The silverstone case allows a FULL ATX board to fit. Having a full ATX board will mean no problem dropping in a full video card.

It's true in theory, but as an example, the thermaltake series of HTPC cases have 3 5.25 bays, 3 3.5 bays and support full size motherboards but....

If you use a full size atx board, it covers the corner of the bottom 5.25 bay so it's unusuable.

If you use a full length video card, it obstructs the bottom one or two 3.5 bays depending on how close the components are to the end of the card. This is made worse if the card needs additional power connectors on the end.

And, in related issues, a full length card means a torturous path for the cables if you are using PATA to the 5.25/3.5 bays.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Velk

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Velk
Also, HTPC cases are almost universally very cramped - a water cooling solution could be highly problematic, as could full length video cards - I'd research that carefully before buying.

The silverstone case allows a FULL ATX board to fit. Having a full ATX board will mean no problem dropping in a full video card.

It's true in theory, but as an example, the thermaltake series of HTPC cases have 3 5.25 bays, 3 3.5 bays and support full size motherboards but....

If you use a full size atx board, it covers the corner of the bottom 5.25 bay so it's unusuable.

If you use a full length video card, it obstructs the bottom one or two 3.5 bays depending on how close the components are to the end of the card. This is made worse if the card needs additional power connectors on the end.

And, in related issues, a full length card means a torturous path for the cables if you are using PATA to the 5.25/3.5 bays.

Hmmm, thanks for that info, looking from the silverstone website, there is no obstruction for the video card, however the only PATA i will be using is the DVD writter. I think maybe i should drop in the plextor SATA dvd-r if thats going to be a issue.

*Sigh* there goes more money going out.

Also i dont like using IDE to SATA adapters, hence why i guess i'll end up getting the 100 dollar writter instead of the 38 dollar NEC :\