Golgatha
Lifer
Just something fun to discuss from my personal quest to build a HTPC for my upstairs sitting area. My criteria were to have streaming + Bluray playback capability, and to keep costs to a minimum. I also only had 5in of clearance underneath my upstairs TV, so this limited me to low profile cases. I started reading reviews of low profiles cases on Newegg and almost all of these SFF systems had cheap ass or underpowered power supplies. Most reviewers reported failure after a year or two. Unacceptable I said!
I really got tunnel vision trying to find a SFF case with a GOOD power supply preinstalled. I got to thinking and thought, "man, it would be really nice if I could just use my PC Power and Cooling PS and not worry about failure of the PS unit". Then I had a eureka moment! Why not get a 2U server case (I didn't have much height to work with, but I did have 28in of width to work with)?
I ended up with this and couldn't be happier.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KQ68BE
My final build ended up being mostly recycled parts. I used a 300GB Velociraptor for the HDD, LG Bluray combo drive, 8GB of RAM, an eVGA GT 430 that I had to buy a LP bracket for, Core i3 530 socket 1156 CPU bought for $75 on the forums, a LP Rosewill USB 3.0 PCIe card (I have an external USB 3.0 1TB portable HDD I can load my Bluray rips onto), and a new Zalman CNPS8000a cooler. I was supposed to use an eVGA P55 based motherboard I purchased with my Folding@Home bucks, which would have kept this build under $250, but they shipped it without a socket protector (damaged socket pins FTL), so I ended up with an ASUS socket 1156 motherboard instead at a cost of $80 after MIR purchased locally at Microcenter. I also exchanged the front fans for a couple of low RPM Enermax fans I procured at Microcenter.
Total out of pocket cost for this project was $96 for the case, $5 for a LP bracket for the GT 430, $60 in misc Microcenter parts (fans and CPU cooler), $80 after MIR for the motherboard, $20 for the USB 3.0 card, and $75 for the CPU ($336 total). If it wouldn't have been for the eVGA shipping snafu, I would have had this done for around $250.
For that money I have a perfect media streaming box which can decode any files under the sun, GPU accelerated Bluray playback (I have TMT 5, which I already purchased for my other HTPC), can playback all Internet content without any issues, and can pass along all the nifty Bluray audio formats along a single HDMI cable (and it looks really slick too with the black metal fins on the front of the chassis). I'm using a Logitech DiNovo Mini to control it all, which I already had for controlling the downstairs HTPC. Just plug in the DiNovo Mini receiver to the front and we're ready to rock!
I really got tunnel vision trying to find a SFF case with a GOOD power supply preinstalled. I got to thinking and thought, "man, it would be really nice if I could just use my PC Power and Cooling PS and not worry about failure of the PS unit". Then I had a eureka moment! Why not get a 2U server case (I didn't have much height to work with, but I did have 28in of width to work with)?
I ended up with this and couldn't be happier.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KQ68BE
My final build ended up being mostly recycled parts. I used a 300GB Velociraptor for the HDD, LG Bluray combo drive, 8GB of RAM, an eVGA GT 430 that I had to buy a LP bracket for, Core i3 530 socket 1156 CPU bought for $75 on the forums, a LP Rosewill USB 3.0 PCIe card (I have an external USB 3.0 1TB portable HDD I can load my Bluray rips onto), and a new Zalman CNPS8000a cooler. I was supposed to use an eVGA P55 based motherboard I purchased with my Folding@Home bucks, which would have kept this build under $250, but they shipped it without a socket protector (damaged socket pins FTL), so I ended up with an ASUS socket 1156 motherboard instead at a cost of $80 after MIR purchased locally at Microcenter. I also exchanged the front fans for a couple of low RPM Enermax fans I procured at Microcenter.
Total out of pocket cost for this project was $96 for the case, $5 for a LP bracket for the GT 430, $60 in misc Microcenter parts (fans and CPU cooler), $80 after MIR for the motherboard, $20 for the USB 3.0 card, and $75 for the CPU ($336 total). If it wouldn't have been for the eVGA shipping snafu, I would have had this done for around $250.
For that money I have a perfect media streaming box which can decode any files under the sun, GPU accelerated Bluray playback (I have TMT 5, which I already purchased for my other HTPC), can playback all Internet content without any issues, and can pass along all the nifty Bluray audio formats along a single HDMI cable (and it looks really slick too with the black metal fins on the front of the chassis). I'm using a Logitech DiNovo Mini to control it all, which I already had for controlling the downstairs HTPC. Just plug in the DiNovo Mini receiver to the front and we're ready to rock!
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