Ok, I’ve not been big into PC hardware for many moons but now I’m needing to build a new HTPC rig. My current machine is getting a bit old and it was never designed for this so I thought I’d try to do it a bit more right this time. I’d appreciate a little input and feedback from you guys on this.
A couple of points up front: I don’t currently do any HD stuff with my HTPC but I have a new 36″ LCD HDTV so obviously I’d like to get into that. I see myself going with a mix of broadcast and QAM and want to get and HDHomerun or two as well to toss into the mix. I’ll use this machine for BeyondTV and BeyondMedia only. No games or anything else. I think that’s all for now.
Here’s my proposed setup.
Case:
Silverstone LC17
Power Supply:
XG Magnum 600 EX
Motherboard:
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Video:
Asus NVidia 8600GT
Fanless or no?
RAM:
????
Tuners:
Hauppauge HVR-1800 or
Avermedia M780 or
ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe
Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Conroe 2.13GHz
CPU Cooler:
Zalman CNPS9500 LED CPU cooler
I’m not really married to anything on there so feel free to shoot away. I’m a bit partial to the Intel at the moment as the reviews I see for their Core 2 Duo stuff is good and I’ve never had any issues with them.
A couple of places I’d really like input is the power supply, the video card, RAM and tuners.
On the PS, should I go with an external unit to fight heat or go with something more traditional?
On the video card, should I go with the fanless or fanned model, again balancing heat and noise. Noise is not a super big issue with me (anything’ll be quiter than what I have and WAF is fine with the current levels) but I’d prefer to not listen to fans more than I have to.
RAM is mostly “how much?” I’ve got a gig in my current setup but I don’t know if more would be better or no impact or what.
On tuners, I’m looking pretty at much anything. MissingRemote.com had a nice review of the Avermedias but said the Hauppauge 1600 would be good if it came in PCI-e and now it does. I’ve currently got a hodgepodge of Hauppauge 500s, a Hauppauge USB2 PVR thing, and an Adaptec dual tuner thingie so I can mix and match current stuff with old stuff but I’d prefer to have two of those HD capable tuners in the machine and expand with HDHomeruns if need be.
Anything I’m missing? I’m still looking at hard drives and have a DVD burner. Thanks for any input up front.
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