Completed A first attempt at being serious (1 Viewer)

[Gralq]

There.. my first dedicated HTPC ordered, delivered and built. =) Only had it for a day now, but I've gotten most of the kinks out of it I think.

Hardware:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H
Chassi: Silverstone HTPC SST-LC17S
Powersupply: Zalman 360W APS Silent
CPU: AMD 64 x2 BE-2400
Cpu Cooler: Scythe Ninja Mini
RAM: 2GB DDR2 667MHz
HDD: 250GB Samsung Sata2
GFX: Integrated ATI Radeon x1250
Optical Device: None so far
NIC: 1Gbit lan

And I'm running XP Pro Sp2 with Mediaportal 0.2.3 on it.

So far I'm disgustingly pleased with the cpu/cooler/case. =) Just watched a 2h movie in 720p and the cpu never exceeded 30C (idle temp 24C) at any given time during the move, and the cpuload where around 33%. A quick test with a 1080p clip gave a cpuload of about 60-70%.

I've added two buildpics, one of the silectpcreview.com inspired softmount of the hdd, and one showing the cable mess that isn't all that bad. =) Most of the cables are either very low, or just under the top of the case.

 

[Spragleknas]

Hope you plan to run vista. If not: Welcome to 690G/X1250 hell

 

[Gralq]

Hehe.. =)

I'm running vista on my workstation and I'm less than pleased with the performance, so I thought I'd test MP with XP. Though, if I run into some issues I might switch.

 

[Spragleknas]

Should have given you a link.
Here you go....

 

[Gralq]

Mmm, read that thread but didn't realize the ickyness of the "bug". =) So now I'm running a student edition of Vista x64 instead, which seems to work rather well.

 

[Dubyahjay]

I so do love that cooler, looking at your pics made me pull the top off of my case for a peek