Ongoing i'm about to purchase an htpc with the following components.... (1 Viewer)

[hype88]

i'm about to purchase an htpc with the following components....

Intel's lE6750 Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz 1333FSB 4MB cache CPU.

-1GB of DDR2 dual-channel RAM

-80GB + 320GB dual SATA hard drives

-Raidmax 630W power supply.

-ATI X800 (Swapping with a NVIDIA 8600 GTS once i get it)

-Dual SATA optical drives - a Samsung 16X DVDRW and a DVDROM reader.

-Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P motherboard

-Black Lian Li HTPC case, with dual matching aluminum bezel.

Now i have to decide on the OS and memory.. this is my first true HTPC.. So i never had the chance to use Microsoft Media Center 2005.. So i'm not sure if i should go with the future and get Vista or get what i've heard was more stable in MMC 2005? I've been reading the vista edition of media center has gotten alot better over all the latest updates? Anyone have any thoughts on which one they'd prefer?

And then with the memory.. the 1gb it comes with is a garbage brand so i'll be needing some ram as well.. i have 2gb of super talent DDR2 -667 PC5300 but should i evan put that in the case? I was thinking about getting some better quality ram.. any suggestions?

also the remaining pci-e slots are x4 and x1.. would a HDTV tuner card run smoothly in a x4 slot? also can anyone suggest a good tuner card for my set-up?

I just don't have much knowledge when it comes to computer parts so any advice would be appreciate...

thanks...
Brad

 

[and-81]

Hey,

Looks like a good setup. Much more powerful than my humble HTPC.

One question, why do you need dual optical drives?

Now, as for the Operating System ... Well, Windows XP SP2 is rock solid these days, so anything else in my mind is a risk. MediaPortal seems to have some small compatibility issues with Vista (this is not my personal experience but based on some reports I've seen in the forums, so I could be wrong). But hey, Vista in general has some compatibility problems so I'm not saying it's MediaPortal's fault.

Are you going to even run MediaPortal, because all you mention is Vista and XP MediaCenter?

And with the RAM, 1Gb of DDR2 should be enough, but as they say, you can never have enough memory. As for it being a crap brand, well if it works it works, so why worry. Just do a burn-in test and move on.

I've got two PCI DVB-T TV cards. So your PCI-Express slots won't have any problems, any of them.

Hope that helps,