new PC to hook up to LCD TV - advice needed!

billius

I'm planning on building a new PC mainly for playing Blu-rays and movies stored on the hard drive.
I'm going to buy the lot from hardwareversand.de (anyone buy from these guys before? any good or bad points?)
here's the setup I was thinking of putting together:

Case: Superflower SF103BK Atlas ATX, schwarz, ohne Netzteil (like the look of it...no experience of superflower cases though!) link
PSU Corsair VX450W 450 Watt link
Mainbaord: Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H, AMD 780G, mATX (I want to use on-board HDMI video to keep the noise levels down. Would this be enough to run video at 1080p?) link
CPU AMD Phenom X3 8650 Box, Sockel AM2+ link
RAM 4096MB-KIT Corsair XMS2 PC8500, CL5 link
HDD Samsung EcoGreen F2 500GB, SATA II (HD502HI) link
Blu-ray/HDDVD drive LG GGC-H20L Retail link

The lot comes to just about 500 Euros. I'm going to install Windows 7 RC. Already have keyboard and mouse.

What do you reckon? Am I on the right track?

Solitaire

Not sure about that mobo/CPU combo, that's a poor-performing CPU that jacks out a hefty 95W so the stock cooler may be noisy, which kinda kills the point of shelling out for a 780G mobo that might not have Audio-Over-HDMI. Especially when €25-30 gets you a passive HD4350...

The case is nice but it probably won't be as small as you're thinking... that thing can take full ATX mobos so it WILL be bulky. Its got some nice cooling (if you go and buy the fans, that is!) but its not suited to stock CPU coolers as the PSU vents heat vertically and so there's no air duct above the CPU. You could find a cheap 92mm tower and orient it vertically to take advantage of the fan mount there but 92mm fans tend to be noisy and coolers that size almost always need a lapping job to get good thermal contact without using three tubs of AS5 And don't be fooled by that little LCD display, it doesn't do that much. It ain't no Veris or iMon, so if you want a HTPC with that kinda capability get ready to change your case and expand your budget...

Generally SuperFlower is a mixed bag, their stuff isn't as high-quality as their rivals but they're not lemons either and they're very keenly priced. Hell, you could drop that PSU down to a SuperFlower 450W (new and decent SFC) and save a bundle If not, at least drop down to a CX400. VX450W is overkill in a HTPC that isn't running games and a graphics card to match.

billius

thanks for the quick reply. What CPU would you recommend? Should I be looking at an intel chip instead? I might ditch the case altogether and go for a thelmaltake htpc case: Thermaltake Mozart Media VC4000SNS link. The size of the case doens't really bother me...it's more how suited it is to htpc needs.

darealtulip

just one thing, if you use it to watch film etc. it's very handy to be able to control your comp with a remote. That why I bought this one:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=439041

there are better ones but this was cheapest one I could find. It was also one of the few that fitted in TV stand unit thingy!

billius

darealtulip wrote: »

just one thing, if you use it to watch film etc. it's very handy to be able to control your comp with a remote. That why I bought this one:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=439041

there are better ones but this was cheapest one I could find. It was also one of the few that fitted in TV stand unit thingy!

Now that's a nice case!! Hmmm...I'm very confused now!!

Solitaire

That Thermaltake case is actually a lot worse The iMon is nice, but it lacks a VFD, only the €140 model has one.

And after a lookaround I now know that HWVS ain't big into HTPC. If you want/need iMon or Veris functionality you're stuck with OCUK (or Pixmania or Komplett for Veris) If not then don't worry so much about case choice.