Advice needed for nontraditional htpc build

[Sozen]

Well I should probably preface this by giving a little info on what I'm going for in this project. Currently I'm using an old laptop hooked up to my TV for the watching of anime, and I'm rapidly running out of room/power to play the newest encodes, and my dvd collection is getting out of hand last count I'm over 400 anime dvds, and that is my other problem. I have blu ray ability through my ps3, but I'm also looking into backing up those files as well so I'll definitely need storage. I saw this build on AVS and I'm submitting this for the opinions of the board members.

# CPU: Athlon X2 4850e ADH4850DOBOX 2.5GHz Socket AM2
# CPU Cooler: ZEROtherm BTF90,
# Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA78G-DS3H AMD 780G chipset ATX,
# Memory: A-DATA ADQVE1A16K DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit,
# Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 4550 GDDR3 512MB,
# PSU: Corsair VX450W CMPSU-450VX,
# Case: SilverStone Lascala LC17 SST-LC17B,

I'm trying mainly to play the newest codecs, and I also want the ability to pass audio, and video through HDMI straight to the tv and eventually through a newer receiver. My main concern is storage as I need to back up some dvds that are actually degrading, and my better half is tired of 2 closets being taken up by discs. I consider myself fairly handy but I don't need the newest craziest parts and would like to stay around $700 before OS
I also already have some hard drives so I've not listed them obviously in the parts as I have 2tb ready to go for internals and the case seems to be able to run supposedly 6 though i think the sound/cooling would be a definite problem if I went that crazy. Please any advice would be most welcome, and especially any suggested builds/more things to look at would be much appreciated.

[trshaw]

i would increase the ram as much as is viable, if running a 64bit OS 4gig should be enough, else 3 gigs preferably.

depending on how many drives you are running, 450 might not be enough juice should be but could cause problems when running > 3 Hard drives.

other than that I think its a very good build. should run most applications smoothly i dont see much issues as is.

[Sozen]

Thanks for the advice. I'll probably be running 32 bit vista just for ease of third party applications but I will definitely look into bumping up the ram to 4 anyway based on price I should have some wiggle room, and thank you for the power supply note I've never had a computer with more than 2 drives so it's all new to me.

[Lucy Diamond]

Have you considered future proofing with a Quad core chipset???

Not too many companies are supporting them right now, but for your applications, it might be a useful avenue to research.

It could also be overkill.

[prerich]

Originally Posted by Sozen

Well I should probably preface this by giving a little info on what I'm going for in this project. Currently I'm using an old laptop hooked up to my TV for the watching of anime, and I'm rapidly running out of room/power to play the newest encodes, and my dvd collection is getting out of hand last count I'm over 400 anime dvds, and that is my other problem. I have blu ray ability through my ps3, but I'm also looking into backing up those files as well so I'll definitely need storage. I saw this build on AVS and I'm submitting this for the opinions of the board members.

# CPU: Athlon X2 4850e ADH4850DOBOX 2.5GHz Socket AM2
# CPU Cooler: ZEROtherm BTF90,
# Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA78G-DS3H AMD 780G chipset ATX,
# Memory: A-DATA ADQVE1A16K DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit,
# Graphics Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 4550 GDDR3 512MB,
# PSU: Corsair VX450W CMPSU-450VX,
# Case: SilverStone Lascala LC17 SST-LC17B,

I'm trying mainly to play the newest codecs, and I also want the ability to pass audio, and video through HDMI straight to the tv and eventually through a newer receiver. My main concern is storage as I need to back up some dvds that are actually degrading, and my better half is tired of 2 closets being taken up by discs. I consider myself fairly handy but I don't need the newest craziest parts and would like to stay around $700 before OS
I also already have some hard drives so I've not listed them obviously in the parts as I have 2tb ready to go for internals and the case seems to be able to run supposedly 6 though i think the sound/cooling would be a definite problem if I went that crazy. Please any advice would be most welcome, and especially any suggested builds/more things to look at would be much appreciated.

Decent build - what O/S are you planniing to use? If you are using a 32bit system (i.e. xp, vista 32) going from 2 ot 3 gig of ram is not a noticeable improvement (the 2 gigs will run in dual channel - 3 gigs run in single channel). Increase hard drive space and get the most you can afford (2TB or greater if you do a lot of stuff). Other than that, its a great machine.

[Sozen]

Thanks for the advice yet again Quad core seems doable as budget allows me some wiggle room so I'll have to see if quad core works for it. I think I'd have to go with a different board though wouldn't I? Again didn't know much about the ram but I may jump to 4 just to "max out" with windows 32 bit OS as for hard drive space I see the new 1.5tera drives but I'm also looking to not go up in storage only to hate the machine because it gets incredibly loud as I said before I have 2tb worth of WD drives ready to go. Don't know how much crazier I can go after that.

[crackinhedz]

I bought myself a PC last night, so I was looking around the net trying to find more info on computers as im almost illiterate to PC.

but this site has some excellent info, even about Dual channel vs. single channel RAM.



Hardware Secrets: Uncomplicating the Complicated

[famu97]

I have a HTPC I just upgraded in the past two weeks myself. Your spec's will definitely work for a HTPC but it won't be blazing fast. AMD is obvious more affordable than Intel CPU's so it fits for the $700 budget but Intel CPU's have better performance right now. If you want to see how your AMD CPU will perform with real-world application performance go to Tomshardware.com and look for the CPU comparison chart. it has mostly all new Intel & AMD cpu's and shows you real-world performance not just floating point operations per/sec. Who knows what that really does for you. Also I would definitely stay under 4GB of RAM if using Vista 32. Since you're not doing blu-ray from your HTPC, then you wont have the headaches I have with blu-ray playback. I use PowerDVD Ultra v7 for playback but it doesn't play blu-ray and HD-DVD movies consistently. it freezes up on me often. I'm going to look for another software player with blu-ray support. I've tried WinDVD in the past and it sucked. Arcsoft makes something I may try. When it works, it looks great. I'm running a Core 2 Quad and my CPU barely jumps up pass 6% playing blu-ray movies. Here's my setup:
ASUS P5Q Pro MB
Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad
2GB DDR 1200 OCZ RAM
Vista 32
LG GCC-H20L combo drive (blu-ray & HD-DVD)
MSI ATI Radeon 3650 video card
OCZ 700 Watt PS
Dvico ATSC OTA HD Tuner
Hauppauge Dual Analog tuner
PowerDVD Ultra v7.3

[Sozen]

Thanks again for the advice especially the links a lot of those I did not know about so they are obviously helping my decision. I've read of the problems of blu ray playback and it's why I'm sticking with my ps3 that and hey it plays games too. Thank you especially for your build list because that helps me a lot. Obviously I can easily go to a hotter processor and that may be the better route for future proofing. I don't need cable cards or the like as I already have a DVR I just mainly want this to be able to store a lot of movie files, and I think I'm on the right track going to look up info on that asus board now. Thanks again everyone for the advice

[glogrono]

Everything looks good, but you should go for one of Sliverstone's power supplies like the ST400. They perform great and are VERY quiet. I have one and you can't hear it at all. I have the same processor and mother board that you listed. I use the stock heatsink and fan and it is almost SILENT and my case is cool to the touch. Save some money and don't get the Zerotherm, it's not needed.