SFF Gaming HTPC

If I go with the Grandia case, these are the components I would go with. With a larger case and a larger power supply, I figure I can use components the require more power and dissipate a little more heat. The only parts I can't decide on are the power supply, motherboard, and two 80mm fans that would go in the back. The Grandia case uses a standard ATX power supply. For the heck of it, would you recommend going with a Silverstone power supply and Silverstone fans?

Silverstone Grandia GD04 - $99.99
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz - $165.99
Sapphire 100283L Radeon HD 5770 - $169.99
G.SKILL 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 - $94.99
LITE-ON iHES208-08 Blu-Ray Combo Drive - $109.99
WD Caviar Green 640GB Hard Drive - $59.99
Logitech S520 Keybaord and Mouse - $59.99
 
One thing wrong with your setup: The 940 does not support DDR3 RAM. You need the 945 for DDR3 support.

Also you can save $16 and get faster RAM as well:
$79 - OCZ Obsidian OCZ3OB1600LV4GK 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600

Not all Silverstone PSUs are of good quality nor worth the price and considering other resources. For a modular PSU, I recommend this:
$125 - Corsair 650HX 650W Modular PSU

Motherboard wise, it would help if you said what features you needed in a motherboard besides it being mATX.
 
Danny Bui said:
Motherboard wise, it would help if you said what features you needed in a motherboard besides it being mATX.
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What else should I specify other than being able to use the above components? If you specify DDR3 1600 there are only three boards I see to choose from. If instead you search for DDR3 1333 and above, ther are only 9 boards to choose from.
 
CircuitsMan said:
What else should I specify other than being able to use the above components? If you specify DDR3 1600 there are only three boards I see to choose from. If instead you search for DDR3 1333 and above, ther are only 9 boards to choose from.
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Number of SATA ports needed, whether onboard video is needed, number of RAM slots needed, if RAID is needed, whether you need more than one PCI-E x16 slot, whether you'll be overclocking, etc. That's what we need specified.

Also note that DDR3 1600 RAM will work in motherboard with DDR3 1333 only motherboards. As been the case since the first SDRAM came out, RAM will downclock itself to the highest speed supported by the motherboard
 
Danny Bui said:
Number of SATA ports needed, whether onboard video is needed, number of RAM slots needed, if RAID is needed, whether you need more than one PCI-E x16 slot, whether you'll be overclocking, etc. That's what we need specified.

Also note that DDR3 1600 RAM will work in motherboard with DDR3 1333 only motherboards. As been the case since the first SDRAM came out, RAM will downclock itself to the highest speed supported by the motherboard
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I don't have a clue about any of that stuff. I can tell you that I have no plans for overclocking, crossfire, or anything like that. I'd consider myself luck and happy just to build the thing. I don't know about RAID, but If I want to backup my data, I would probably just use an external hard drive. Simpler, no? Onboard video would only be a benefit if it would be better at playing videos than the GPU picked out and/or extend the life of my GPU.

Most of the boards I looked at were practically identical anyways so I don't see how the above info would differentiate one board from another.
 
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CircuitsMan said:
I don't have a clue about any of that stuff. I can tell you that I have no plans for overclocking, crossfire, or anything like that. I'd consider myself luck and happy just to build the thing. I don't know about RAID, but If I want to backup my data, I would probably just use an external hard drive. Simpler, no? Onboard video would only be a benefit if it would be better at playing videos than the GPU picked out and/or extend the life of my GPU.

Most of the boards I looked at were practically identical anyways so I don't see how the above info would differentiate one board from another.
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The above info does indeed help differentiate one board from another. If you had answered that you had plans for overclocking, I would have gone with a mobo that had the SB750 southbridge as the SB750 is the better overclocking AMD southbridge. If you had answered crossfire, I would have looked for the 790GX chipset, etc, etc. So yes those answers did help.

I recommend this CPU/mobo combo:
$240 - AMD Phenom II 945 + GIGABYTE GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AM3 AMD 785G mATX motherboard

However do note that your budget does allow for a Core i5 setup like this:
$200 - Intel Core i5 750 CPU
$110 - Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 Intel P55 mATX Motherboard
----
Total: $$330.
 
Do you absolutely need 8x BD-ROM? The faster the better, obviously, but it seems like they cost a shit-ton more.
 
Danny Bui said:
This is the weakest part of that setup: That particularly OCZ PSU is not of good quality as it is made by Sirtec.
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Okay, scratch that.

Obviously, he has a lot of money left in his budget for a better PSU.

I tried to find something with modular cabling that's not overly expensive, since it doesn't look like there's too many places to stow away cables in that case.

Who makes the Antec BP550?
 
I said $1000-$1200 for a bubdget to leave a little wiggle room, but I would still like to keep it under $1000 if possible.
 
Danny Bui said:
The above info does indeed help differentiate one board from another. If you had answered that you had plans for overclocking, I would have gone with a mobo that had the SB750 southbridge as the SB750 is the better overclocking AMD southbridge. If you had answered crossfire, I would have looked for the 790GX chipset, etc, etc. So yes those answers did help.
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All of the AMD micro-ATX boards I see have the same southbridge with the exception of the DFI LP JR 790GX-M3H5 AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard. It has an SB750 and specifies crossfire support.
 
Each of those PCI-E slots have only 8 lanes -- you don't even get the option of full 16x bandwidth on one card.
 
CircuitsMan said:
My point is the south bridge only made that one board stand out. So how did those questions help you choose among the other eight?
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Jeez never thought I had to explain the entire recommendation process:

Those questions made sure that you didn't have any special needs in a motherboard. You're right: yes to most of those questions would have only singled out one mobo, And that was the point dude: To see if you needed that DFI mobo

Ok, I started 12 mATX Socket AM3 motherboards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

Yes they all have onboard video. So that question was a bit superfluous.

Ok, right off the bat, the Jetway and ECS are out since they're made by companies with bad track record. The refurb mobo is out since it's used. So that's 9 mobos left

Now since you didn't say you needed the features offered by the DFI, that's out. 8 Mobos left

I'm assuming that you wanted four RAM slots, that leaves out the MSI GF615M-P33. That's 7 mobos left.

I also asked how many SATA ports did you needed. If you had answered six, that would have left only two motherboards, an Asus and a DFI. However since you didn't answer, I assumed 5 SATA ports would be enough.

Since you didn't provide any more info like number of USB ports needed, number of eSATA ports needed, if firewire was needed, etc, I did what I always do when the client/op doesn't specify any other special features. So I Iooked for a CPU/mobo combo deal, found the Gigabyte mobo and Phenom II X4 945 CPU combo, and recommended that on the assumption that it would fit your needs since you didn't specify any other special feature.
 
dannybui, you're putting too much effort into this, and you've already given the OP plenty of very good suggestions...

i would suggest the OP to do some more reading/googling to get a better idea of exactly what to build
 
Danny Bui said:
Jeez never thought I had to explain the entire recommendation process:

Those questions made sure that you didn't have any special needs in a motherboard. You're right: yes to most of those questions would have only singled out one mobo, And that was the point dude: To see if you needed that DFI mobo

Ok, I started 12 mATX Socket AM3 motherboards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

Yes they all have onboard video. So that question was a bit superfluous.

Ok, right off the bat, the Jetway and ECS are out since they're made by companies with bad track record. The refurb mobo is out since it's used. So that's 9 mobos left

Now since you didn't say you needed the features offered by the DFI, that's out. 8 Mobos left

I'm assuming that you wanted four RAM slots, that leaves out the MSI GF615M-P33. That's 7 mobos left.

I also asked how many SATA ports did you needed. If you had answered six, that would have left only two motherboards, an Asus and a DFI. However since you didn't answer, I assumed 5 SATA ports would be enough.

Since you didn't provide any more info like number of USB ports needed, number of eSATA ports needed, if firewire was needed, etc, I did what I always do when the client/op doesn't specify any other special features. So I Iooked for a CPU/mobo combo deal, found the Gigabyte mobo and Phenom II X4 945 CPU combo, and recommended that on the assumption that it would fit your needs since you didn't specify any other special feature.
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Thank you. Without knowing your reasoning, I only had your word that it was better. I also wouldn't learn anything if you just gave me part #. So, of the 7 mobos you had left, there really wasn't anything different between them so you went with the one that came in a combo deal with the processor?
 
CircuitsMan said:
Thank you. Without knowing your reasoning, I only had your word that it was better. I also wouldn't learn anything if you just gave me part #. So, of the 7 mobos you had left, there really wasn't anything different between them so you went with the one that came in a combo deal with the processor?
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Well there were differences (eSATA, firewire, number of USB ports etc) between those 7 mobos. However since you didn't mention any of those differences or needing those differences, I just went with the combo deal that had a mobo from a motherboard vendor that I knew was of good quality. Since Gigabyte is one of the first tier motherboards makers, wasn't hard to go with the Gigabyte.
 
makmatsu said:
dannybui, you're putting too much effort into this, and you've already given the OP plenty of very good suggestions...

i would suggest the OP to do some more reading/googling to get a better idea of exactly what to build
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I've tried reading/googling but the internet isn't very forthcoming with information. It takes a lot of digging just to find anything useful. Besides, I don't see why everyone is getting upset with a noobie asking questions. That's what noobies do. If you know of a good resource, point me in the right direction and I'll go read and research for a while.

I want to thank everyone for all of their help. I think I have a good idea of where to go from here and can help myself the rest of the way.
 
CircuitsMan said:
I've tried reading/googling but the internet isn't very forthcoming with information. It takes a lot of digging just to find anything useful. Besides, I don't see why everyone is getting upset with a noobie asking questions. That's what noobies do. If you know of a good resource, point me in the right direction and I'll go read and research for a while.

I want to thank everyone for all of their help. I think I have a good idea of where to go from here and can help myself the rest of the way.
Click to expand...

Danni Bui knows what he is talking about.

Zero82z, engiNURD, among a few others.

Danni Bui is the most objective (IMO), though.

Google will typically just land you into many threads with "what do I need to do this?"

and the typical response will be:

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=I'm+an+idiot

so...

[H] has it's quirks, but:

Welcome to the [H]!

and best of luck to you!
 
Modred189 said:
Indeed. Now go get a genmay subscription! lol.
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I intend to fold my way in. It's gonna take a while, but I am currently trying to trade a Slimline for a really good card.

Silentbob343 said:
I have a solution for you;
http://gizmodo.com/5403000/dell-zino-hd-230-mini-home-theater-pc

and done
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A very good system, especially for the price/size.

AMD Dual core.

HD4330 (that's right) graphics (not 4350, lol)

It's actually a mobile system, put in a 'minidesk' case. Some older HP Slimlines did the same thing, but on a larger size.

For 290, you get the 'best' loadout.

This system blows away any inkling of 'ION'.
Also, before I have to answer this again:
9400GT != 9400m (ION)
 
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