[HappyCamper]

Hello,

I am looking at upgrading a few parts on my gaming PC and thought about using the old stuff to build my first HTPC.

Looking at this HTPC to be running Linux with Frodo with 1080p playback. Not after 3d ATM and

So far on parts I have the below:

old Motherboard - Asrock Extreme 3 Gen 3
old RAM - G.Skill Ripjaws 8gb (overkill?) I was thinking keeping these for the new mobo and purchasing 2x2gb
CPU - Intel Pentium G860
SSD - Smallest drive either by Crucial or Samsung
PSU - I have been recommended Seasonic as they are meant to be silent (Not sure of W's though)
WiFi - Any recommendations here as i dont have ethernet in the wall near the tv?
Case - Unsure maybe one with IR connection or remote

Any recommendations will be fantastic

Thanks in advance
HappyCamper

[Vertigo]

If you only need it for XBMC, have a look at openelec. Saves you the cost of an SSD (an USB stick is plenty) and you can get away with less than 1GB. Certainly no point in getting 8GB. Not 100% sure if that onboard GPU is up to the job though, maybe someone else can comment.

With the money you saved, I would suggest buying some cat5 cable, or if cabling is not possible, one of those ethernet over electricity plug-in thingies. Id really advice against wifi for (HD) streaming. Unless you only need the wifi for internet connection, and you will store your media locally.

[RaggSokk3n]

psu: any seasonic atx will do the trick
wifi: Asus pci(e) with as many antennas as possible
case: ml03b cheap and good
ir: any compatible with your chosen os
remote: logitech harmony
keyboard(instead of ir/remote) : logitech k400

---

If you only need it for XBMC, have a look at openelec. Saves you the cost of an SSD (an USB stick is plenty) and you can get away with less than 1GB. Certainly no point in getting 8GB. Not 100% sure if that onboard GPU is up to the job though, maybe someone else can comment.

With the money you saved, I would suggest buying some cat5 cable, or if cabling is not possible, one of those ethernet over electricity plug-in thingies. Id really advice against wifi for (HD) streaming. Unless you only need the wifi for internet connection, and you will store your media locally.

wifi does better than powerlan (specialy the one I recomended)
ram costs almost nothing anyways so no need to cut down to less than 4gb
onboard gpu does everything except 3d & gaming

[Vertigo]

wifi does better than powerlan (specialy the one I recomended)

I beg to differ. Perhaps at short range with not many sources of interference or objects blocking and compared to a crappy homeplug adapter, wifi might win, but as a general statement, I cant agree with that at all. Random review of a decent homeplug device:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398209,00.asp

Transferring a 100 MB folder from my desktop PC to my laptop on the other side of the house took 15 seconds, while a 500MB folder transfer took 1 minute and 20 seconds. Making those transfers over my Wi-Fi N network took significantly longer; the 100MB folder needed 1 minute and 18 seconds to finish the move, and the 500MB folder needed 9 minutes and 25 seconds

When is the last time you got anywhere near 200Mbps real life transfer speed over wifi?