780G vs Geforce 8200 – Which Case? – AMD phenom x3 8450 enough?

[oxymoron2006]

Hi,

Hope your all well & life is good and all that.

Oxymoron2006: The Story, Thus far…

Well been trying to nail the “perfect” HTPC since 2006, had various incarnations, either have been underpowered, crap driver support, too loud or too bright. I bought a PS3 last year as I got so sick of blu-rays not playing in PowerDVD 7 at the time. Must say extremely happy with blu-ray playback on ps3, its great no judder, no messing, just works.

Now, been fiddling with Mediaportal and it made me feel warm inside and got me in the mood to build a SILENT (no fan noise, no rattling, no scream HDD noise @ greater than 1m) HTPC/downloader box.

I also need to rebuild my parents HTPC in the lounge as it lags like hell on some HD-DVD’s. My dad and me got so annoyed with blu0ray lag he went out and bought the samsung BD-1500 blu-ray player.

He still needs access to my DVD rips & TV show recordings so I could reuse the e6300, xbox 360 Hd-DVD drive, 2gb ram, heatsink, HDD. Basically all it needs is a cheap G31 board with a 4350 for a mild overclock on the e6300 & it needs the 4350 to pass audio over HDMI (we just got a HDMI reciever at xmas).

Am I right in thinking this would then handle a couple of HD-DVD’s we have left & would pass the audio fine for some recorded Tv shows? is the 4350 enough for what we need? I know the 4550 is better but it might be overkill now we have bought the independant blu-ray player.

Components & software I already have:

HD-DVD/Blu-ray/DVD-RW LG drive
2gb Geil DDR2 800mhz ram
xbox 360 HD-DVD drive
Intel e6300 cpu
zalman CPS8000 heatsink

Now this just leaves build number 2:

If I can get this build right and blu-rays can be played without judder & have the PQ of the ps3, I can then sell the ps3 & finally have HTPC bliss.

What I was thinking was the following components:

My existing LG BD/HD-DVD/DVD drive
Phenom 8450 triple core – is this enough juice?
Now Don’t know which mainboard to get 780G or Nvidia 8200? I read at anandtech that the nvidia is better as it does 1080p/24p without issue & can pass 8 channel LPCM, unlike the 780G which can’t. Is that right?

I was looking at this Asus Geforce 8200 board: http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=149&l3=643&l4=0&model=2268&modelmenu=1

It has a SPDIF port & DVI as well as HDMI, I need the DVI & SPDIF for now as my Reciever is not HDMI. So this is a real bonus. I can also get it for £58 delivered, unlike the gigabyte 780G board which is like £80  :-[ as it seems everyman and his dog is buying it.

Lastly I’m looking for a case with ideally space for 3-4 HDD, full pci size card support, 120mm fan slots (The best for silent operation?) & the ability to turn on the HTPC from being completely off.

The only option I can find that doesn’t cost the earth is the Antec Fusion Black, but after reading some reviews the VFD can’t be dimmed, so that rules that case out. Mainly because this HTPc is going in my bedroom, so I can’t sleep with massive lights flashing at night 🙂

Any advise?

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