Frankenstein HTPC

officermartinez

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
Messages
2,012
Well I might as well put all of my parts laying to good use. Like a few others, when the i7 2600K came out, I jumped on it. I figured it was a good time to play around with the 1155 socket. My wife's "aging" computer consists of an Asus 775 socket motherboard, Q6600 and 4gigs of DDR2 1066. I figured I could use her internal parts as a HTPC for our gym room. Pretty basic as far as HTPC's are concerned. Most of the time, I would just play MP3's or watch a movie while I was running on the treadmill. Since it will be located in my home gym area, acoustics / fan noise are NOT a big concern for me (weights slamming, music pumping, tons of manly weight lifting grunting going on)..haha. You get the picture!

My wife just told me that I had BETTER NOT TOUCH her computer! She is happy with it and it is plenty fast for her. After a explaining what I wanted to do, her final answer was still "DO NOT TOUCH MY COMPUTER".. hahaha! So, it looks like I will be building a frankenstein HTPC with my current internal parts. Once the rest of my 1155 parts come in, I will dismantle my 1156 setup that I am using now. I know some parts are overkill but it's the only parts that I will have, laying around! So, I am looking for a few suggestions on HTPC cases and preferably a decent modular PSU. The case needs to be able to support a full atx board. I am not trying to spend more than $150 (but I'm see a nmediapc 6000 for $79 that has caught my eye)!

Parts that I already own for this HTPC build:

Intel i7 860
Gigabyte P55-UD4P mobo
GSkill DDR3 2000 ripjaws - (2 x 2gb)
WD 640gb HDD w/ Windows Vista Ultimate x64 already loaded on it
EVGA 8800GTS 640mb video card
LG bluray / cd-dvd drive
OLD Westinghouse 42" 1080p LVM-42w2
Pioneer 5.1 500w receiver (with SPDIF input.. no hdmi)
5 - speakers and an old Aiwa 8" powered sub

The only things I really need to "buy" is a HTPC case and a power supply. I will NOT game on this computer, no overclocking and my internet surfing will be at a mininum. I might even be interested in underclocking if that would help reduce my heat output without effecting playback. I understand this is [H]ard|Forum but I feel my parts are overkill for this build. Suggestions?
 
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bencorn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
230
An i7 for a HTPC? And I thought my AMD 5200 was overkill... But seriously, depending on the software and what you want to do with it, take a look at XBMC with their new AppleTV2 software. $100 bucks for the hardware, free software, and a slick interface. Run it 24/7 for a year on about 10 bucks in electric too. But unless you plan on gaming, encoding, or something intensive like that, I'd save the i7 for something else.
 

Adidas4275

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 11, 2006
Messages
5,986
NMedia PC, antec and silverstone make nice HTPC cases


You do know you posted this in the gallery sub forum right?
 

officermartinez

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
Messages
2,012
Ugh.. you know, you're absolutely right. OK, I'll stop with my ranting and raving about HTPC parts / suggestions. LOL, I will get my HTPC built and just be sure to snap some pics of it! I appreciate the heads up.
 
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