There is an amazing amount of great information on this website, but for a newbie like me, I've gotten to the point where I'm overwhelmed and starting to feel confused about the component choices I've made so far.
This PC will be a purely HTPC, so I don't need the latest and greatest components. Silence is the top priority.
Case - Antec SLK3000B Mid Tower
Case Fan - stock case fan - TriCool (running at the lowest setting)
PSU - Seasonic Super Tornado 300W
CPU - Athlon 64 3200+
CPU Cooler - ThermalRight Heatsink XP-120 Fanless
Motherboard - Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR nForce3 250Gb for Socket 754
Memory - 1 stick of 512mb PC3200 Crucial
Graphics - Rosewill Radeon 9600 128mb Fanless
Hard Drive - Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA 7200RPM
Optical Drive - Pioneer DVR-109 (supposedly has silencing technology)
Other - Gyration Ultra GT Keyboard/Mouse
Other - Avermedia UltraTV 1500 MCE Tuner
Other - Zalman 6-Channel Fan Controller Panel ZM-MFC1
I also have a 120mm Panaflo that I can use in case the CPU or the case needs a little more airflow or to replace the stock case fan if it's too loud.
I went with the SLK3000 mid tower instead of one of the newer horizontal cases for a few reasons. First, silence is my primary concern and I think the Antec would be a good deal better, especially since most of the horizontal cases have two 60mm rear fans (bleh) and/or bad air circulation. Second, the way my home theater is set up, a black mid tower can sit next to my TV basically be invisible. Third, my cabinet doesn't have space or adequate ventilation for a horizontal HTPC case.
I considered one of the new fanless power supplies and decided that it would never work because I'm trying to build a fanless CPU, VGA card and chipset. So a slow 120mm fan in the Seasonic Tornado seemed a good idea.
I picked the Soltek motherboard because its a nForce3 250Gb board that supports undervolting and according to AMD, Soltek and some other sources I don't remember, the Cool-n-Quiet works normally.
I am worried about HD noise, so I went with a pretty big drive so hopefully I won't have to ever add another drive that needs to be silenced. Some mixed reports about the Diamondmax10's, so I may need to do some DIY work like suspensions or maybe buy a prebuilt silencing solutions like a SilentDrive.
Thanks!
Looking for advice for my new HTPC build
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Hey, take whatever I say with a grain of salt because I'm also a newbie, but I've been reading a lot on this great forum lately 
I like your chocies, I'm presonally getting the same case and I got the super tornado 350W for the power supply, so I can vouch for that at least.
As far as the TV tuner goes, I was originally looking at the Hauppauge PVR 250, but I recently ran into this card:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDe ... 601&depa=1
It is based on the new ATI Theatre 550 Pro chip and is very new, so reviews are a little hard to find. It's supposed to offer amazing analog tv quality though with a 3D comb filter included, hardware MPEG2 encoding, and bunch of other good stuff. Very reasonable price to at less than $100!
I like your chocies, I'm presonally getting the same case and I got the super tornado 350W for the power supply, so I can vouch for that at least.
As far as the TV tuner goes, I was originally looking at the Hauppauge PVR 250, but I recently ran into this card:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDe ... 601&depa=1
It is based on the new ATI Theatre 550 Pro chip and is very new, so reviews are a little hard to find. It's supposed to offer amazing analog tv quality though with a 3D comb filter included, hardware MPEG2 encoding, and bunch of other good stuff. Very reasonable price to at less than $100!
I did a quick google browse of the new ATI Theatre chip based tuner cards. I couldn't find any real reviews, but there was a few forum discussions. Mixed comments where some people really liked it and others said to avoid it because the associated software and drivers were rather poor. I'm also not sure whether it'll work with Windows MCE.
The Hauppauge 250 and Avermedia 1500 are tried and true tuners cards that have been used by a lot of people to build HTPC's. The Avermedia is cheaper (around $75 or something), so that's my current choice, heh.
The Hauppauge 250 and Avermedia 1500 are tried and true tuners cards that have been used by a lot of people to build HTPC's. The Avermedia is cheaper (around $75 or something), so that's my current choice, heh.
Heh, researching how to make a quiet HTPC made me all paranoid about the noise from my current primary PC. As a temporary fix, I ended up sticking it in a closet where it's slowly cooking everything inside.
Instead of making one quiet HTPC, I'm going to make three PC's! (Yes, I'm very bored and looking for a new side hobby, heh.)
1. HTPC (This will be most of my current PC's innards stuck into a better case and silenced as much as possible)
2. work/game PC (Mostly new components that will hopefully be pretty fast)
3. storage/media server (I don't really care how loud it is because I'll be sticking it in a closet, along with most of the hard drives)
Because I'm recycling as much as possible from my current PC and other systems lying around my house, the total cost is actually quite reasonable.
After a good amount of additional research, I'm actually feeling pretty good about my component choices. But I'm pretty sure I'll be posting again in a week or so when I actually try building these systems (and probably screwing up miserably, heh).
Part of the reason why I want to build multiple PC's is I want to make a rendering farm with all the PC's in my house. I do a lot of 3D art in my free time and I'm curious how much multiple PC's will speed up the whole process.
Instead of making one quiet HTPC, I'm going to make three PC's! (Yes, I'm very bored and looking for a new side hobby, heh.)
1. HTPC (This will be most of my current PC's innards stuck into a better case and silenced as much as possible)
2. work/game PC (Mostly new components that will hopefully be pretty fast)
3. storage/media server (I don't really care how loud it is because I'll be sticking it in a closet, along with most of the hard drives)
Because I'm recycling as much as possible from my current PC and other systems lying around my house, the total cost is actually quite reasonable.
After a good amount of additional research, I'm actually feeling pretty good about my component choices. But I'm pretty sure I'll be posting again in a week or so when I actually try building these systems (and probably screwing up miserably, heh).
Part of the reason why I want to build multiple PC's is I want to make a rendering farm with all the PC's in my house. I do a lot of 3D art in my free time and I'm curious how much multiple PC's will speed up the whole process.