help building a htpc

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linzi

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right first of all its been a very long time since we made a pc about ten years in fact so will need a bit of help..

i dont really no much about these parts or what they mean or ow good they are ive only found these through reviews on ebuyer but any help will be appreciated

first of we have just bought the thermal take dh202 htpc case
this one:Thermaltake Global > Product > Chassis > Desktop > DH202 > VJ80011N2Z

now this has 7 expansion ports at back so just looked on ebuyer at motherboards and found this

motherboard
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO 785G Socket AM3 onboard DVI VGA.. | Ebuyer.com

prossesor
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2 GHz.. | Ebuyer.com

hard drive
Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB Hard Drive SATAII.. | Ebuyer.com

bluray writer
LG BH10LS30 10x BD-RE with DVD±RW &amp.. | Ebuyer.com

but not sure on which ram or power unit to get for the case
if anyone could help me at all or spec me a better computer for this case i would much appreciate it also as i mentioned the case has 7 expansion slots so i may as well take full advantage with a motherboard incase i want to add anything extra in it later many thanks for reading


also which i forgot to add i want to be able to download 3d movies to plug into my 3d tv so would this be capable of doing this
 
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Why not buy a SSD hard drive to handle the OS and all the main programs, it will piss all over the load times of standard sata drives.

I would honestly have a SSD running all your applications and the OS and then have the big hard drive to store your stuff like moves etc.

Mickie
 
yeah ive looked into that one but i cant afford to add a ssd there a bit expensive at the moment in time i probably will add one when i get some more cash to add on to it
 
also not yet buy i want to add tv sat and free view tuners so dont no what power i need
 
First of all nice choice of case! PSU get what ever suits your needs OCZ 650w dont buy a budget one...

As Mickie said get a SSD for main OS... whack linux on it and run XBMC ;) or if you really want you could install win7 and use the 1tb drive to store your data... It will make a lot of difference and defo worth the money... Keep in mind SSD dont heat up like normal drives.

Freeview tuners... I would wait for prices of DVB-T2 tuners to come down or just get a standard one for now... You wont be able to get HD though. I have a dual pinnacle tuner and its great... Can record one channel watch another etc...
 
What are you using this PC for ?

Key to keeping it quiet is reduce the heat output to minimum level which means use lower power components if possible, like low voltage, slower CPU, 5,400rpm drives, etc.

Ultimately if you can run the system with only one or two fans that would be great.

In terms of processing power, I use a Athlon II 350 in my HTPC which has a HD Sat card in there (which does run hot) and that it fine.
 
right first of i cant get away with that linux so will be running windows 7 i want to be able to download hd films and 3d bluray movies for my 3d tv ive been looking at this motherboard just by reviews and the amount of expansion ports its got so im not entirely clue up its been some years since we built one but what you guys think of this board and proccessor

Asus M4A785TD-V EVO 785G Socket AM3 onboard DVI VGA.. | Ebuyer.com
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2 GHz.. | Ebuyer.com

or if you no of a better one that would be great its a full case so may as well go atx
and also im gonna give the ssd a miss for now till they come down in price a bit
 
i really just want it as powerfull as i can really afford really
 
if you are planning on using XBMC only on it then you can use an SD card or usb stick for the OS. The latest branches of XBMC have a patch that eradicate burning these types of storage out by continued repeated single sector access . However if you want tuners then you will probably also want to run something like mediatomb or similar. There is an xbmc app that can launch linux progs on your system. This means you can run everything in a command line linux environment and keep as many resources free as possible whilst still having an easy GUI. You have to decide if you want the tuners in or not first. Dont forget it will be less economic with those in. Why not also consider having a media server incorporated that is DLNA compliant. This will enable you to share loads of media and recordings to the other TVs in the house. Personally I would have an ugly old tower under the stairs and use a network remote android / http remote app to control the system
 
no i want it with windows for my every day pc needs also with tuners and stuff i just need help with selecting parts like the ones above if there any good or some better ones
 
right were a bit behind the times with building but whats the difference between the motherboard and proccessor that i chose i thought the proccessor i chose was better
 
I personally would spend a bit extra on that mobo and use the athlon as its powerfull enough to multitask and run 1080p3d. Not to mention windows can now share video processing with the graphics card efficiantly and athlons can be overclocked heavily and reliably, Personally when the heatsink is attached to CPU I use arctic silver therm paste. It can make the difference in cpu performance. So I tend to spend more on mobo and less on cpu, overclocked if nessesary and costs are a factor

also I have had too many issues with asus mobos to feel confident recommending them
 
for a bit extra oomph hows about a Pheom II x2 555/560 BE, more l2 cache and can quite easily sit at 4Ghz, it's about another £30 over the Athlon.
 
What is your budget? And are you expecting the tuners out of that?

When you say "every day PC needs", aside from the HTPC function, what do you mean? For example one of the main uses for my PC is for gaming, which is graphics and hard drive heavy. However, someone else may do a lot of video converting, which is more CPU and RAM heavy.
 
well surfing web listening to music i do a lot of downloading of hd films and 3dhd movies for my tv in time im gonna put sat tuners and that in just want it really powerfull

so at the mo its just main conponents really

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2 GHz.. | Ebuyer.com
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO 785G Socket AM3 onboard DVI VGA.. | Ebuyer.com these 2 i looked at so that prob about the price also need ram but not sure which so if you can find out better that would be great or are these to really good

plus this board has the right amount of expansions my case has
 
RAM: Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Blu Memory.. | Ebuyer.com

There is a list of 3D capable nvidia graphics cards about two-thirds of the way down this page: 3D Vision Requirements

Unless you are going to be re-encoding video all day, there is no need for quad-core processing at the home level. If you want a bit more punch than the X2 250 I'd actually be looking at the i5-750 or 760 from Intel on the Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 rather than the X4 955 (though it does add £30-55 to the cost depending where you buy from).
 
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