My first media build! (1 Viewer)

[DannyDroid]

Hello.
I am going to do my first build after the holidays but I would like to know your views on the hardware I have picked.
The hardware will need to cope being on pretty much 24/7. It will be used as a HTPC as well as do some streaming to my little brothers PSP and my step-dad's XBox 360.

Sound and size I am not too worried about (though it would be nice to have a small, quite PC).

Here's what I think (and a few others) will work great;
500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar Blue, SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms - Scan.co.uk

BX80571E7300 - Intel Core 2 Duo, E7300, Wolfdale Core, S775, 2.66 GHz, 1066MHz, 3MB Cache, 10x Multiplier, Retail - Scan.co.uk

Antec NSK-6580B Mid Tower Case inc 430w 80+ PSU, 9 Drive Bays, Front IO USB & IEEE 1394 - Scan.co.uk

Asus P5N7A-VM, NF730i, S775, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, uATX, VGA, HDCP - Scan.co.uk

GH22NS30 AUAA50B - LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±R, 16xDVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RWx6 ,12xRAM SATA, Black, OEM - Scan.co.uk

TWIN2X4096-6400C5 G - 4GB Corsair (2x2GB) TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-18 - Scan.co.uk

Net Total: £294.80
Carriage: £11.26
VAT: £45.91
Total: £351.97

What do you all think?
Danny.

 

[dm15644]

Depending on what you want to do with the machine it seems like a reasonable setup.

If you don't want to run audio over HDMI and want to save some extra bucks, have a look at a AMD 780G board. E.g. the ASRock A780 FullDisplayPort is recommend by Anandtech. Add a AMD Athlon 4850e to that.

Your disk drive isn't a Blue Ray. If you don't need 1080p support, you can even go down to a AMD 740 based board, e.g. Foxconn A74MX-K.

Cheers

jayrock

 

[DannyDroid]

I don't agree with AMD CPU's. I spend too many hours fixing my friends AMD desktops from the whole WinXP SP3 thing .

As for a bluray, I am thinking about getting one, but I don't think it will be this side of new year. I would love to get into HD (why the processor and HDMI) but as of now I just have a load of DVD's.

I'm just thinking about the case size really. It's not really important but I don't want it to look like a desktop machine. I want it to look lovely next to me (hopefully will get) HD TV.