Me and my wife are looking to put together a living room PC/DVR using some money from our wedding, and I'm trying to get an idea of what to aim for. The standard questions:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Using this as a living room PC, will probably also use it as a DVR with the InfiniTV tuner. In theory I might game on it, but I'd probably just use Steam home streaming from my desktop to do that.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Aiming for around $500, might go a bit higher if I think it would help..
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
US (Seattle area)
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
HTPC Case (Planning to use either a full ATX or Micro-ATX form factor to accommodate the video card and tuner,) MB, CPU, RAM, HDD (need plenty of space for DVR recordings), Blu-Ray(Optional), PSU, OS, input devices.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Reusing a GTX 660 Ti video card that was replaced in my desktop and a Ceton InfiniTV PCI-E cablecard tuner.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No. Aiming for quiet more than performance.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
60-inch 1080p TV.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
No specific needs, but Bluetooth on the MB would be nice to have.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I will need to get one, will probably stick to Windows 7 for now since the tuner card requires MCE.
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Using this as a living room PC, will probably also use it as a DVR with the InfiniTV tuner. In theory I might game on it, but I'd probably just use Steam home streaming from my desktop to do that.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Aiming for around $500, might go a bit higher if I think it would help..
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
US (Seattle area)
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
HTPC Case (Planning to use either a full ATX or Micro-ATX form factor to accommodate the video card and tuner,) MB, CPU, RAM, HDD (need plenty of space for DVR recordings), Blu-Ray(Optional), PSU, OS, input devices.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Reusing a GTX 660 Ti video card that was replaced in my desktop and a Ceton InfiniTV PCI-E cablecard tuner.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No. Aiming for quiet more than performance.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
60-inch 1080p TV.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
No specific needs, but Bluetooth on the MB would be nice to have.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I will need to get one, will probably stick to Windows 7 for now since the tuner card requires MCE.