[Castor Troy]

Hi I've never built my own PC before so any help would be much appreciated. I'm thinking about building my own Gaming HTPC to replace my ps3 and laptop. I have looked around the forum and come up with a spec i think that will more than handle my needs but i would appreciate some feedback and advice from the experts on this forum. I'm not 100% sure about the case, mobo or the gpu and i do want it to be as silent as possible. i will be using it for watching 720p and 1080p movies, playing the latest games and also for work.

Please any help will be much appreciated

SilverStone Grandia GD08 Home Theatre Server Case
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W)
Sapphire VAPOR-X HD 7950 OC with Boost Graphics card - 3 GB - GDDR5 SDRAM
Samsung 840 Pro Series 256 GB Internal SSD Serial ATA-600 2.5" MZ-7PD256
WD Green 3 TB Internal hard drive Serial ATA-600 3.5" WD30EZRX
Pioneer BDR-207EBK 12x Blu-Ray Writer
Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler
Asus P8Z77-V PRO Motherboard (Socket 1155, 32GB DDR3 Support, ATX, Wifi, Intel Z77 Express, Network iControl, USB 3.0, SLI/CrossFireX Support)
Kingston HyperX Genesis XMP X2 Grey Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) - 1600Mhz (PC3-12800)
Be quiet! 120mm Silent Wings 2 Case Fan

[cwide]

This is one of the more expensive builds I have ever seen on here, but it looks like it will definitely do the job for you.

Definitely overkill as an HTPC, but it does make an elite gaming machine. Also, I don't know if you really need that aftermarket CPU cooler. The intel stock coolers are pretty good and quiet. Other than that... if you can afford it, it looks like a killer build.

[Angrynapkin]

I have something along the same lines;

Intel Core i5 3570k
Intel DH77EB
Intel 120GB X25-M (boot drive w/ fanart + posters)
Corsair 8 GB Corsair PC1333
Reference Diamond 7970 (1050/1500)
4 x 3TB WD HDs in Raid 5
2TB Steam Drive (External eSATA)
centon infiniTV 4
Silverstone GD06B w/ custom noise proofed matting
Silverstone 500W

I use the WMC + XBMC plugin with Advance Launcher for my Steam library with custom posters and fanart (used to pull everything from gamesdb)

The big thing to keep in mind is if you are like me and want everything in one box instead of having a server offsite you want your games on a completely different hard drive that your movies/downloads/tv shows etc are going.

Also you are going to want to take a look at your cooling situation, I got an exhaust card for a reason. If you believe the case cooling is good enough then by all means. I have a hard time hearing it while gaming, which is the only time it gets louder. Otherwise the GPU fan is at 20% and inaudiable.