First HPTC build, any advice appreciated

[ps3hacker]

First off, Im trying to buid a cheap home theater pc. This will only be hooked up to my 60'' Sony SXRD. Cost is very important and want to keep the price as low as possible. The main goal of my project is to be able to play my hd-dvd and blu ray movies from my hard drive. I already own a Xbox 360 w/HD-DVD drive and a ps3. Ive gotten the project down to $800, includes everything I need. I just wanted to run it by some of you guys her to see if this setup will work. Any advice, help because this is my first self built pc. Here is my setup

1. ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard. Good 7.1 onboard sound $135

2.GIGABYTE GV-NX76T256HI-RH GeForce 7600GT 256MBGDDR3
PCI Express x16 HDMI HDCP Video Card. Just the bare
minumum to watch HD-DVD's and blu ray but this is not meant to be a gaming rig anyways. Has little extras like fanless, HDCP, hdmi. $160

4. XClio 450BL ATX 450W Power Supply - Retail. Dont know if this is big enough. Plan on 3 hard drives(in future), 1 dvd drive, and everything else listed here. $38

5.Crucial Ballistix 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model BL12864AA804. Simply the best here $135

6.AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+(65W) Windsor 2.4GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADO4600CUBOX $125

7.Samsung SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $130

8.COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel, SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $50

9.Cheap dvd drive $20

Total $793

[foxyshadis]

Moved to hardware & software, since everyone here loves to tell folks what a bad idea everything they picked out was. ;)

As a budget midrange system it looks fine to me. The powersupply is actually overkill, not even close to borderline, and according to reviews seemingly reliable, quiet, and decent efficiency (http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews/cases/Meridian_XClio_450W_6.html) (and a bad power factor). You'll be hard-pressed to break 200W with that system though, a 7600GT (50W) and low-voltage X2 (65W) won't even get it warm, what looks like around 40-60W for the board+memory (hard to tell here though), then 5-15W per drive and ~25W per optical, typically, at the absolute peak. But it's cheap, efficiency doesn't suffer at low utilization like most supplies, so why not have some overkill.

(The system specs listed here (http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=nf5sli&page=5), compared to the total wattage used, should put your situation - and the wild claims of some sites - in perspective. That's also after the (in)efficiency multiplier, in-system load is 20-25% less.)

[shakey]

See if you can get a non-SLI version of the motherboard. If you can it'll be a few $ cheaper, since in a HTPC you'll probably never need SLI anyway.

[HookedOnTV]

You could replace the motherboard and video card with the Asus M2A-VM ($91) which would save you about $200

[LordTrace]

Yea the M2A-VM looks great for a budget HTPC.
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=101&l3=496&model=1568&modelmenu=1

I have used the M2NPV-VM in the past .. and it been good to me :D
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=101&l3=0&model=1138&modelmenu=1

[ps3hacker]

That Motherboard looks good, but is not capable of playing hd dvd or bluray,is it? Well no 1080p atleasst and no hdmi (which is no big deal but still)

[diizzy]

Motherboard:
SAPPHIRE MB1013 (actually called PI-AM2RS690MHD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813154013
It also supports "Dolby Digital Live" which the Asus board doesnt support (which is nice for a HTPC) as well as SPDIF out (included).
Here's a review of the board and it seems to be very nice in its price range. The chipset also supports AVIVO (from what I can tell) which is not bad at all.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/PI-AM2RS690MHD/1

Video Card:
None, integrated will do for now (at least). You can upgrade later on if you want to.

CPU:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Windsor 2.4GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103751
Same as yours, no need to argue here :-)
Very good price/performance ratio

PSU:
Seasonic S12 430W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817151023
For HTPCs the expression "silence is golden" really is true, for that a high quality PSU from Seasonic will do the job nicely while still providing plenty of room for expansion.
You can find a review of it here and I can highly recommend it (owner myself).
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article226-page1.html

@ foxyshadis
As I have a feeling that you're going to pick on this I'll state my reasoning.
Wattage itself is a pretty bad measurement as it doesnt say how the power is actually distributed among the rails.
What's imporant today is mainly 12V, the rest arent as much loaded as before. Using the current setup I agree with you that 430W is somewhat overkill but I assume that he will add more hardware later on (perhaps a beefy video card later etc) and here's really where it shines. Even if you put it under high load its still dead silent (they arent lying about in the review) and that is something you want for a HTPC. In general "expensive" PSUs tend to have a much longer life than cheap ones as manufacturers have put more money into getting good components. Of course PSUs can be overpriced but in this case its not, there's a lot of reviews around the net discussing this topic. :-)

RAM:
Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820134114
It'll be perfectly fine for what you are going to use it for and it also runs at 1.8V which minimizes issues with voltage (1.8V is stock voltage),

HDD:
Hitachi E7K500 500Gb SATA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822147007
Slightly faster and 5 years of warranty
"Deskstar E7K500 drives shipped on or after March 1, 2006 (Part Numbers: 0A31619 and 0A32937) - 5 years"
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/warranty/english.htm

Case:
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811119068
Same as yours, very good case for the money...

DVD:
Pioneer DVR-212DBK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16827129009
Pioneer makes very good and silent DVD burners in general.

//Danne

[LordTrace]

That SAPPHIRE MB1013 board looks nice!

Ugly case for HTPC though! hehe .. This case with both the 120mm fans 5v modded is awesome!

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18348&vpn=NSK2400&manufacture=ANTEC

[diizzy]

I wouldnt say that its the prettiest thing on earth but its quiet and cheap (while still having some "quality feeling" to it). If I were to choose I'd go with the Silverstone SG-01 which is a very nice HTPC case and has very good thermal design. It is although at least twice as expensive which is an issue (at least for ps3hacker). Downside with Antec PSUs is that they tend to be a bit noisy and 380W seems to have high failure rate :/

//Danne, running an A64 3200+ (fanless) in a SG-01 case =)

[LordTrace]

Yea i replaced the Antec with a Fortron 120mm PSU first thing in mine.

I'm running cheap ass ($35 CAD) sempron64 with passive heatsink as well. Got both 120mm fans 5vmodded and the HDD is suspended. You can barely tell the things on! .. Not enough power for 1080p x264 HD DVDrips though :(