14 replies to this topic

[The Drizzle]

My second PC has been a work in process for the last few months/years. I basically had some extra hardware lying around, and figure Id make it into an HTPC. I had an A64 3500+ system a few months ago, It had plenty of power and worked really nice. After a few months, I ran into some problems with my ram and motherboard. I was getting crazy BSOD's and random reboots. I sent those back for RMA, and got some replacements, but I didnt want to deal with them anymore. I had some extra money, so I figured why not upgrade. These are the specs of the upgraded HTPC:

Intel Core 2 Duo e6400
Asus P5LD2-VM DH
Corsair 2x512mb PC25400 675mhz DDR2 4-4-4-12
Evga 7600GS
Maxtor 80gb SATA boot & Seagate 7200.10 320gb SATA storage
Benq DVD burner
2x ATI Theater 550 TV tuner(one PCI, one PCI-e)
Avermedia A180 OTA HD TV Tuner
Antec Fusion Desktop case with 430w psu

I had to RMA the board because it came DOA, and I got the replacement board in the other day. It took me a few days to get it to boot because they sent me a board with a really old bios from the wrong board. Im suprised that bios actually works, but it does. I just updated it to the latest one using a spare p4 cpu I had around and it worked fine.

The idea with an HTPC is for it to be cool, quiet and powerful. Graphics cards dont have to be the best, its only rendering at 1280x720 on my TV, plus I wont play a ton of games on it. Also the card I have is passive cooled. The motherboard is passive cooled, and the stock CPU fan is quiet and does fine at stock speeds. I will be using windows Media Center Edition once its finished. Overall its a really nice system, and one of the fastest Ive ever built. Ill put up some benchmarks later, but for all you Intel/Nvidia haters out there(ahem....chris)after some quick tests, its doing better at stock speeds(2.13ghz) than my 3.0ghz opteron.

PICS:







Some pics of the VFD on the front:







Ill have more pics once its completed. Im waiting for a new bios chip, and once thats in, Ill put it on the shelf, clean up a bit and hook it up to my TV. Ill have pics of the whole setup then. Any comments/questions feel free to ask--Drizzle

Edited by Drizzle4535, 15 December 2006 - 06:31 PM.

[ShLoNkY]

That case is sexy how much and where??

I have a 3200+, GB ram, good psu and an x800xt layin around. Just waiting for a good deal on an HTPC case n buy a descent mobo.


Come to think about it, I think Im going to put my in a rack mount server chassis instead:



Something like that

[The Drizzle]

I got it for $135 shipped AR from page computers. Its $175 + shipping on newegg. Page computers has it for $136 + shipping, which isnt a bad deal. I also like the Antec NSK2400 Linkage Its the same case without the cool VFD, volume knob, and drive cover. Also, The psu from the fusion, and I think the NSK are made by Seasonic.

EDIT: I have a MSI K8NGM2-FID here for sale. I used it with the 3500+ system. Its fresh back from RMA, I never opened up the static bag yet. It looks like a new board too.

Edited by Drizzle4535, 15 December 2006 - 05:58 PM.

[ShLoNkY]

What would you wanna sell it for??

[Mandraque]

arent you gona change the memory speed?

[The Drizzle]

what do you mean mandraque? Its running at the highest the board supports(667mhz)

And shlonky - $65 shipped

Any benchmark requests? So far I have SuperPi 1M at 28s

Edited by Drizzle4535, 15 December 2006 - 10:31 PM.

[Mandraque]

ao ita ayncronous with the proc. runs better at those speeds....not much but it is an improvement.

[The Drizzle]

The ram speed is faster than the fsb. I dont think slowing down the ram would help it. When I overclock it, I most likley will lower the speed so I can get more fsb out of it. Thats a little down the line though, I gotta get it all together first.

[Mandraque]

i saw some benches a while back....keppeing the c2d at 1:1 with the fsb gives better than putting it in 667....with 800 theres a sligth gain....but its still pretty small gains and losses...setup looks nice tw.

[Mandraque]

Any benchmark requests? So far I have SuperPi 1M at 28s

wow...that is horrible...i get 44s on the 1M...and i have a D 820 running a 2.8....

[The Drizzle]

lower is better with super pi, you know that right? 44s is terrible.

[monster]

lower is better with super pi, you know that right? 44s is terrible.

lol..... just like "My ping is 150.... yours is only 65 noob!" heh



Drizzle, I gotta say... I don't like that case. It looks a bit too retro... you know... like a 1970's amp. Still better than having an atx case clunking around your home theatre though, right? Just my personal preference.


Another thing..... why so much power for an HTPC? Do the tuners require lotsa cpu / mem for encoding? Cause playback can be pulled off with a pentium 3....


Also (I sound like a b*tch tonight, right? lol).... HD space seems a bit wimpy, compared to everything else. I have a pair of those 7200.10 320's, they're wicked, but seem a bit small when considering that for an HTPC, HD size is a huge factor. Unless you're going to be streaming....

[Sniprwulf]

I had aspirations to build a pc similar to this. Couple of things held me back. One, didnt feel like dropping extra money on something you don't really need. Another thing was waiting for a high def tv. Well I got the high def tv and thinking about making the pc for it now. Once I get some extra money together I'll probably dissect the computer I'm using now to make it which should be plenty of power and build a better more powerful machine as my gaming rig as I'll be using that alot more than the htpc. just my opinion.

nice rig tho.

[ShLoNkY]

Someone find me a case that looks like this:



If I could find one that would match my power conditioner it would be cool.

What I'd really like to do is find a broken Monster Powercenter, gut it and install my HTPC in that.

[The Drizzle]

Yeah, It is a really powerful rig. My 3500+ rig did just fine with all the tuners and whatnot, but I figure if Im gonna upgrade why not really upgrade it. I think the case fits well with my setup, but I havent put it in its home yet. I had a 400gb raid array in my old rig, but since this only has 2 HD bays, I had to ditch that. I couldnt find a good deal on a 400gb, and I got this 320gb for $65 so why the hell not. I dont really keep alot of the recordings on the drive anyway. Mostly they get auto deleted after the drive fills up. I usually just watch a show once then wont go back to it again, so it just sits there. Ill still be able to fit about 3 weeks worth of recordings on it no problem.