I'm building a HTPC for under 350€
i'm strictly going for low noise/heat with a maximum of performance and minimum price
The Hardware
Case - SilverStone Milo ML01 black
a quality mATX Case, 10cm high, low profile, all ALU-Case with a 300W Power Supply (250W effective)
has a build in 32:1 Card Reader
Harddisc - Western Digital Caviar GP 500GB SATA II (WD5000AACS)
This HD has the lowest noise/energy consumption in it's class (3.5")
if you want a HDD that produces even less noise you have to loock at 2.5" drives,
which have a higher in cost/performance ratio
CPU - AMD Sempron 64 LE-1100 AM2
out of the box with 1.90GHz this cpu will be extremly undervolted/underclocked
and will be cooled be passivly cooled for 90% of it's time and should heat be a problem
a 92cm fan will be activated - which brings us to the cpu fan:
CPU Cooler - Scythe Shuriken
large but low profile AL/CU cooler with nice heatpipe layout
the fan will be controlled via mainboard/software
Memory - Aeneon DIMM 1024MB PC2-6400U CL5 (DDR2-800)
i could have gone for just 512MB (which is more then enough for media decoding in an HTPC)
but i took 1GB because the price was the same
Mainboard - Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
This mainboard is the heart and king of integrated technology
with an onboard ATi HD 3200 this ****** has more then enough power to decode 1080P on the fly
with minimal use of the cpu (that's why the Sempron gets underclocked)
Top that with a 7.1 sound chip (ALC889A), Gb LAN, HDMI, DVI-D, VGA and FireWire and you got all you need.
DVD-RW Drive - LG GSA-4163B
older but still excellent drive i have laying around, will be reduced to 1xSpeed while playing DVD's
for low noise profile and can be dynamically switched to full speed when ripping stuff
i'm strictly going for low noise/heat with a maximum of performance and minimum price
The Hardware
Case - SilverStone Milo ML01 black
a quality mATX Case, 10cm high, low profile, all ALU-Case with a 300W Power Supply (250W effective)
has a build in 32:1 Card Reader
Harddisc - Western Digital Caviar GP 500GB SATA II (WD5000AACS)
This HD has the lowest noise/energy consumption in it's class (3.5")
if you want a HDD that produces even less noise you have to loock at 2.5" drives,
which have a higher in cost/performance ratio
CPU - AMD Sempron 64 LE-1100 AM2
out of the box with 1.90GHz this cpu will be extremly undervolted/underclocked
and will be cooled be passivly cooled for 90% of it's time and should heat be a problem
a 92cm fan will be activated - which brings us to the cpu fan:
CPU Cooler - Scythe Shuriken
large but low profile AL/CU cooler with nice heatpipe layout
the fan will be controlled via mainboard/software
Memory - Aeneon DIMM 1024MB PC2-6400U CL5 (DDR2-800)
i could have gone for just 512MB (which is more then enough for media decoding in an HTPC)
but i took 1GB because the price was the same
Mainboard - Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
This mainboard is the heart and king of integrated technology
with an onboard ATi HD 3200 this ****** has more then enough power to decode 1080P on the fly
with minimal use of the cpu (that's why the Sempron gets underclocked)
Top that with a 7.1 sound chip (ALC889A), Gb LAN, HDMI, DVI-D, VGA and FireWire and you got all you need.
DVD-RW Drive - LG GSA-4163B
older but still excellent drive i have laying around, will be reduced to 1xSpeed while playing DVD's
for low noise profile and can be dynamically switched to full speed when ripping stuff