AMD HTPC Build, Goal, under 400$

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pr1m3

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
134
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Watching HD movies and browsing the Internet. Maybe Quake Live for lan parties.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
My Goal is to keep it under $400. But I'm willing to go to $450 or more, if its totally worth it.

3) Where do you live?
Oklahoma

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
Entire build, I'll be getting case fans from SVC and other places, not needed to be listed here.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
None

6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
On my 42" Westinghouse

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Very soon.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Crossfire would be nice

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Yes, Windows Vista Business. But I'm wanting to dual boot Linux(Ubuntu or Kubuntu) & Windows 7
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Hi guys,

I just ordered my new parts for my main rig, a new i7 build =D And now I want to build a cheap HTPC build, because I'm tired of dragging my main rig from office to living room to watch HD movies on my PC. And so far, the build I have, it could be a nice little gaming rig to take to friends house on the weekend if I happened to be chilling there. Looking for advice. Here's what I have so far. I know I said my goal was under $400, but I think that will be hard. I ordered a LG Blue/HD DVD player for my main rig, I'm most likely going to be putting it in this rig now. So that is not included in the $400 price range.

LIAN LI PC-V351B Black Aluminum MicroATX - $129.99

ASUS M3N78-VM AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8200 HDMI - $79.99

G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) - $31.99

AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Dual-Core black edition - $58.99

Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power - $54.99

XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V - $39.99

Total build cost so far is at $381.92, shipping included.

I just need help picking out a power supply and a lower profile HFF. I want to try to OC it as much as possible for this case. I'll be getting the top cut, because my friend can get metal work done for free at his work. So I'll be adding a top fan for exhaust. Thanks for any tips and help! =D Oh and also, I'm open to other cases. I just want it to be small and under 90$, not willing to spend too much on the case.

Edit: Okay, so I found a PSU shortly after posting this. What do you guys think of the build? Something I miss, advice?
 
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I have a 300gig Maxtor Sata1 hdd laying around I'm not using anymore. I could consider using it and saving the money. I even have a 500gig I could use from my main rig. I was using it as my OS drive, but I ordered two of the WD Black 640s and I'm going to Raid them for my OS. So I guess I'm saying I could save the money on the hard drive and reach my under 400$ limit.
 
Instead of the 780G and HD 3450 card, just go with a mobo with the Nvidia 8200 chipset since the 8200 chipset supports 7.1 LPCM audio whereas the 780G at most, usually only Gigabyte mobos, 5.1 audio:
$73 -Asus M3N78-VM GeForce 8200 HDMI mATX Motherboard

Ditch the G.Skill RAM. $30 for a 2GB set of DDR2 RAM is waaaay over priced. I recommend this RAM set instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148163
 
Danny Bui said:
Instead of the 780G and HD 3450 card, just go with a mobo with the Nvidia 8200 chipset since the 8200 chipset supports 7.1 LPCM audio whereas the 780G at most, usually only Gigabyte mobos, 5.1 audio:
$73 -Asus M3N78-VM GeForce 8200 HDMI mATX Motherboard

Ditch the G.Skill RAM. $30 for a 2GB set of DDR2 RAM is waaaay over priced. I recommend this RAM set instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148163
Click to expand...

Thanks Danny! You helped me decide on a few things on my i7 build as well, thanks. Do you think the onboard then will be good enough? I honestly probably won't game on it, but its kinda nice if I could. Mainly like if someone wanted to lan with me if they came over. Be nice if it could run Diablo 3 on low settings even when that came out for lanning purposes. But doesn't need to right now, say the onboard works for now for movie reasons and later if this mobo could, drop a video card in it.

*updated*
Also, a modular power supply $60 or under would be nice. But also kinda want it future proofed if I could add a card in it down the road.

Found a modular PSU I can live with for this one. Upgraded to a case I'd like more, also if I ever wanted to add hard drives later down the road. Also so I can fit a after market HFF.

I think I'll just go with the Xigmatek Dark Knight. I have a 92mm Riffle on my current system and does well. If you there's a cheaper HFF that can OC decently/well, please advise. =D
Actually, darn I need to see if the Dark Knight is too tall for that case.
 
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I'm still having a hard time deciding which HFF for this build. Mainly becuase of clearance. I need a low profile cooler, but still able to decently over clock.
 
pr1m3 said:
Thanks Danny! You helped me decide on a few things on my i7 build as well, thanks. Do you think the onboard then will be good enough? I honestly probably won't game on it, but its kinda nice if I could. Mainly like if someone wanted to lan with me if they came over. Be nice if it could run Diablo 3 on low settings even when that came out for lanning purposes. But doesn't need to right now, say the onboard works for now for movie reasons and later if this mobo could, drop a video card in it.
Click to expand...

Onboard video would be enough for watching HD content and really light gaming.

pr1m3 said:
Also, a modular power supply $60 or under would be nice. But also kinda want it future proofed if I could add a card in it down the road.

Found a modular PSU I can live with for this one.
Click to expand...
Poor choice. The Basiq is not a good quality PSU. For a decent modular PSU, you'll need to spend at least $90 or so.
 
pr1m3, why the xigmatek? the 7750 BE comes with a heatsink, and i dont see the reason for die-had OCing in a HTPC..
 
If you're not getting a discrete video card, there is zero point to overclocking the CPU. The CPU you've got it more than enough for watching HD (+ post-processing if you want) and you can offload most HD decoding to the on-board graphics (DxVA or CoreAVC with CUDA). All you would do by overclocking is increase heat and noise.

If you decide not to overclock, definitely use the stock heatsink (saving money).

Speaking of cases - you might be able to save some money by going for something like the Thermaltake SD200. Comes with a 270W power supply, which even if it's not very good, should be more than enough for this build (without OC). No idea about how much noise it produces. Looks very nice.

(Thermaltake): http://www.thermaltake.com/product_overview.aspx?PARENT_CID=C_00001368

(Australian site and price): http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=11279
 
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