Need comments on HTPC Specs (2 Viewers)

[knutinh]

With the system I'm building, I want it to be my dream system which wouldn't need updating for a few years yet.

I chose 2GB of RAM as it would mean that the PC would be able to handle all kinds of tasks without being able to break so much as a sweat... [If PC's could sweat, that is! *L*]

It's the same with the graphics card, the soundcard and the PSU, I did my research for those by reading the reviews for the parts concerned in Custom PC magazine and the guys there know their stuff when it comes to PC's and that's why I chose them as I knew they would be good parts to use...

For the CPU, I chose the one in the specs because of the fact that I'd be doing a lot of recording on one of the 4 hard drives and it's better to have more processing power rather than have less power which is why I'm now going to stick to my original choice of processor.

With cooling this sucker, it's going to have the maximum number of fans in the case including the cross-flow fan which is purchased seperately and is specially created for this particular case [and I chose this case not just for its looks but also for the fact that I can use any kind of m-ATX mobo instead of buying a SFF case which don't seem promising, that plus it looks good! *L*]

Smirnuff - It's good to hear that the card you mentioned IS compatible with Windows XP as I thought it wasn't from the way the specs read it...

On another note, I'm really glad I signed up to this forum as the posters here are so friendly and it's good to know that some of the people who actually work on the program actually take the time to post and answer people's questions even if they come across as being noobish...

I also promise that when "Kawaii Ami-chan" is built, I'll post pictures of it for everyone to see how kick-ass it looks!

Hello. I see now that your priorities are very different from mine in terms of noise and cost. But I think that the "wouldnt need updating for a few years" may be a bit optimistic. Once you start PC building, there will be a constant crave for new parts and more speed

Good luck!

Knut Inge

 

[chili]

Yes, I probably should qualify my answers. I do think that your tone is unnessary, though...

Sorry about my tone. I do not want this forum to become like others (such as the AVScience forums) where anyone that asks a question either gets told to search through 7 billion posts or gets an answer like your first.

Your validation post was much more informative for me and probably others too. I happen to agree with much of what you stated, but there is nothing wrong with the equipment he listed - I wish I had some of it!... and beer is good :wink:

 

[tomtom21000]

These are the specs that I'm planning on using for my HTPC which I'm calling "Kawaii Ami-chan" after Ami Mizuno from Sailor Moon and which I plan on building in the near future when my finances are better and I just need some comments to whether the specs are good for a HTPC.

According to the specs of your dream machine you seem to be old enough to earn your own money. Because with this shopping list, you will need to earn some serious money.
If this is correct, you are probably old enough to live together with someone female. If this is athe case or come into question in the next 2-3 years, my advice is to take the noise-factor of your system into account.

I don´t know any woman who is impressed with 2TB of storage, but a couple who would condemn your machine from the living-room without hesitation, because they think it is too loud :?

tomtom

 

[BorgmanJayce]

I never thought about the noice factor of the machine and I'd probably be scared witless trying to stop it from making too much noise...

On to other things:
Looks like knutinh may have a point about the PSU and the CPU now that he's gone indepth about certain parts for the PC and I will go with a 330W Seasonic and I'll make my decision concerning the CPU when I've got the finances together to build it but I'm still a bit concerned about the RAM issue as I always thought you needed plenty of RAM to do stuff like encode files and more graphic-intensive stuff...

As for the beer thing, I'm not a alcohol drinker altho I'm always partial to a bit of Vimto...

 

[knutinh]

I never thought about the noice factor of the machine and I'd probably be scared witless trying to stop it from making too much noise...

On to other things:
Looks like knutinh may have a point about the PSU and the CPU now that he's gone indepth about certain parts for the PC and I will go with a 330W Seasonic and I'll make my decision concerning the CPU when I've got the finances together to build it but I'm still a bit concerned about the RAM issue as I always thought you needed plenty of RAM to do stuff like encode files and more graphic-intensive stuff...

As for the beer thing, I'm not a alcohol drinker altho I'm always partial to a bit of Vimto...

I guess the noise issue is very subjective and depends on where you put your computer. I was initially using computers for recording music, and since then, I have been obsessed with building computers that are silent enough that other noise sources (such as traffic) become dominant. My point is that computers can be very noisy and very annoying, or they can be built a lot more silent with only a little thought. Building completely silent computers, on the other hand, is expensive and means a lot of compromises.

There usually is no such thing as "too much ram" (actually, there have been a couple of cases, such as >512MB on win98 systems, but that is really irrelevant to this discussion). If you'd like to be on the safe side, buy as much ram as you can afford, preferrably using only 2 sticks (as 4 sticks can lead to compatibility issues with some motherboard/ram combinations). My point is that you should not expect to see much performance improvement in typical htpc applications. If you are a hardcore photoshop user with raw 12mpixel pictures all over the screen, 2GB may be a very usefull thing.

What is "Vimto"?

Im sorry if I come off as a smart-ass. I try to share my experience (and far to many hours spent on forums like these and in front/back of of my computer). The same way that I am drawing on the experience of you media-portal guys =)

regards
Knut