I seriously considered a mac mini for a HTPC. The capacity problem made me not go that route.
In short is cheaper than if u build your own with similar specs and silent out of the box.

Intel mainboards are more expensive yes. But they are troubleless in my experience. With HDMI I think there is the one with ati chipset from gigabyte. i will get the older intel with g965, and will buy a video card when needed. For all but h.264 encoding +some other stuff in multitasking a 1.8ghz c2...

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007. ... &chart=431

I think i have answered by myself. The additional cache is worth nothing in h.264 encoding, while megaherz and cores matters. No Q6400 unfortunately

I tnink i'll go with the E4500

jaganath wrote:The E4X00 have more L2 cache so are better for gaming.

I need it for a HTPC. But I think that under 2ghz is too few for HD decoding.
The 2180 is not available yet i think so my best bet is e4400-e4500.
no overclocking planned.

Power Consumption: Frankly, the results surprised me.

The E2160 used significantly less power than the energy efficient AMD X2 4200+

What about the E2x compared to the E4x core duos?
I'm considering 2ghz+ cpus and the E4400 is dirt cheap...

I like multi-tasking-ish situtations. Virus scanning while working, browsing while burning etc etc. Audio and video editing. Not much into games. You just need a dual core for this. What about memory? 1GB or 2GB does it make much difference in watts if I don't overclock? 1GB is enough for XP. 2GB f...

MikeC wrote: No mistake. It's a black Fusion. The Zalman is taller by 1-1.5".

Uhh then this is really tiny!

As for your comment about the 300W supply, it's a tough sell. Most cases come with "450W" supplies or around there, and trying to get somebody to upgrade from a crappy 450W made with balsa and tinfoil to a rock solid 300W made with industrial grade components is tough because the number is the key ...

There's a mistake in the label of the photo with 3 cases in the first page. The bottom one is not an antec fusion (which would be much smaller!) but a zalman hd160.

Matija wrote: Uhm... M-Audio is far from "crap". Comparing them to Creative is almost an insult :/

I sincerely hope they make better soundcards than speakers.

I'm still reading more review, phew. The terminology I used for the sound dampening stuff is not correct. 2) For additional storage, just use eSATA -- a terabyte drive 5 feet away on a foam pad in an Antec MX1 will be plenty and quiet. Until they change the price of external drives and enclosures, t...

I've been searching and I haven't found too much info, I'm wondering what the general consensus is for soundcards, sounds like X-Fi is decent and M-audio audiophile series are pretty good. someone else suggested the chaintech 7.1. There are a few considerations to be made: I've got a Marantz sr7300...

I happened by chance on a page showing a passively cooled MSI card with the HD2400 chipset and I didnt know it was so cheap! I had considered GF 8500/8600 and the price is around 80/100€ for those, so I ruled em out. But now I'm reconsidering. I wont ever play games with this HTPC. Why wait months...

why the hx520? if you are concerned about silence, the seasonic s12 II 380 would be perfect for that htpc...since 520 watts is overkill for those specs... Because of the noise at high temperatures. See the table here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article751-page5.html and here: http://www.silentpc...

I just lost the post that I was writing :( So this will be a shorter version. This is the configuration that will be inside http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=371250 I choose the zalman after 2 WEEKS of searching, because it just LOOKS decent in the hi-fi room. And I dont have 800$...

Ok, it is more or less final, but I can do last-minute changes. Case: Zalman HD135* Mainboard: Intel DG965WH G965 (ATX) CPU: E4400 CPU cooler: Scythe Ninja mini (fan at 7v) Graphic: onboard, then a 2600HD/8600 Sound: onboard for now TV-Tuner: USB DBV-T (existing) LAN: onboard Gigabit RAM: 2GB Transc...

What a waste of money on these crap.

A m-tron 32GB SSD costs around 1000$ and offers much better performance.

If you want to spend over 2000$, wait for the FusionIO. That will give performances of a dozen 15k drives in a single pci-e card for 30$/GB.

I added the smiley face to say I'd pretty much given up hope with these drives. If players could act as drives for PCs, I'd get one today - alas they don't do data... but a man can dream. Yeah... I have a Rotel CDP which is silent and has good quality :) I think the only solution with HTPC for musi...

Never tried listening to audio CDs. Maybe it tones itself down as with movie DVDs, maybe it doesn't. Could care less at this point. :D I DO care because I'm gonna build a HTPC and I will listen to audio with it too. Anyway, I will rip everything onto the HD. So the samsung 203 can still be a good c...

I was considering this drive for a HTPC but this thread is making me double-think. I haven't had good experience with Pioneer units, so that's out of the question. I also have a Samsung dvdrom and dvd-r 18x which seems quiet to me, but the room and the computers are too noisy to evaluate this :) Wha...