[Stewge]

For a long time I've had an "old" laptop (Alienware M15X, i7 quad-core, 4GB ram, GTX 260M gfx) which I had connected to the TV to supplement my usual XBMCLive Linux PC for movies/tv etc. Coupled with some Logitech F710 controllers, XBMC, Advanced Launcher plugin and some controls tweaking it became an awesome TV games machine. While I do have a "main" desktop (i7-2600K, 16GB ram, GTX580) I found myself coming back to the TV, which is a 50", for all my racing games, platformers and especially co-op and emulator stuff with housemates/guests as it's so damn nice on the big screen, on the couch with some mates and a few beers. Unfortunately, the GTX-260M really struggled with dishing out newer games at 1080p in medium detail settings so it's time to reorganise.

The current Linux XBMC box will be shifted out of the living room and act as a headless NAS with XBMC library in mySQL with a new, beefy box running Windows 7 with XBMC as the frontend for everything and networked with gigabit over cat6. I'd love to hear any comments/suggestions as this is my first true HTPC build (as far as HTPC desktop case, quiet design etc). I'm aiming for a sufficiently powerful machine with a bit of room to grow without breaking the bank.

Here's what I'm currently looking at:

CPU: Intel i5 2500K
CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Vortex Plus low profile cooler (17dBa operating noise)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77-PRO3 ATX (supports SLI with 3 slot spacing incase I go down that route later as well as fast booting as this box won't be on 24/7)
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) G-Skill 1600mhz DDR3
SSD: OCZ Vertex 2 60GB (this is a left-over drive I have spare which can act as the boot drive for fast booting)
HDD: 1x 2TB WD Green for games storage (videos/music/etc will be networked as above)
GFX: Gainward GTX 560 Ti 1GB (~33dBa operating noise, quietest 560Ti I can find without going the liquid cooling route which isn't practical)
Case: Silverstone LC-20B ATX Case (fits a full ATX mobo, plenty of fan spots and will accept full length cards). Size is not really an issue.
PSU: Corsair HX-750W (This is a spare PSU I have)
Fans: 2x Noctua 80mm case fans (10dBa @ 1300RPM pushing 39m3/h)

All this (minus SSD and PSU as I already have them) plus some small stuff like thermal paste and case silencing accessories (felt feet, rubber screw grommets etc) comes in at damn near $1000 AUD which is just the right price.
I'll be waiting a little while until I hear about what the situation is with the nVidia 600 series cards but otherwise I'm set to go. I'm pretty keen on using nVidia instead of AMD/ATI as the 3D support (should I go down that route) is superior as well as their newest 300 drivers offering a few things which are handy for TV gamers such as adaptive v-sync and FSAA (higher performance than MSAA). I'll also have the benefit of the SLI upgrade path which seems more successful than crossfire, especially for 3D.

On top of gaming/xbmc duties this machine will be beefy enough to serve as a video conversion box in spare time and I also do a lot of music recording and mixing where a quiet PC is great and being connected to a 5.1 speaker setup opens up 5.1 surround mixing opportunities that I haven't been able to do before

Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions on the build?

[reksveks]

Looks good to me, I am also planning to build a gaming pc in a htpc case and everything there looks good. I went the same way with the graphics card because I as well plan to play 3d games and 3d vision has better support than the ATI equivalent.

Haven't got many suggestions, but would love to see pics and how well it performs when it is built.

[Ryoga79]

Outside of the brand names of some of the products (my ram is corsair instead of g-skill, my videocard is zotac instead of gainward), that build and the one i'm currently using are pretty much identical. Only difference between the two is my case is different and i have a Zalman fan on the CPU. It runs pretty much everything i throw at it, including Wii and PS2 emulation which are both pretty demanding on the system. Pretty much every game i've thrown at it runs at full speed with everything turned up at 1920x1080, 4xMXAA. Also, unless both the videocard and CPU are both cranking it's whipser quiet - if i'm watching a tv show at a decent volume i can't hear it at all. So i can say from first-hand experience that that build will suit you well.

Only thing i can't comment on is the 3D performance, as i don't have a 3DTV.

[Canozzie]

Hey Stewge how is this rig working for you, grabbing a very similar setup shortly.

[Stewge]

So, it's been a while since I originally posted. Since then the shopping list changed a few times. But, I just received the last batch of part/s (GPU) and we're good to go. Unfortunately I'm at work, so won't have pics til later. For now I can list more specs (everybody likes specs )

The current build has morphed into (* on the changes):
*CPU: Intel i5 3550 (new Sandy Bridge CPUs were available, so why not)
CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Vortex Plus low profile cooler (17dBa operating noise)
*Motherboard: ASRock Z77-Extreme4 ATX with Virtu MVP***(More on Virtu below)
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) G-Skill 1600mhz DDR3
*SSD: None, got used up in another smaller ION MediaPC build.
*HDD: 1x 2TB Hitachi 7200rpm (Now that this is the primary drive, was going to need something a bit quicker)
*Optical: LG Bluray combo drive (combined with Bluray Passkey by the DVDFab crowd, direct Bluray disc playback via the "Play Disc" option in XBMC is friggin awesome) Tested this in an ION build and works brilliantly.
*GFX: Gigabyte GTX 580 Super Overclock 1.5GB
Case: Silverstone LC-20B ATX Case (fits a full ATX mobo, plenty of fan spots and will accept full length cards). Size is not really an issue.
PSU: Corsair HX-750W (This is a spare PSU I have)
Fans: 2x Noctua 80mm case fans (10dBa @ 1300RPM pushing 39m3/h), 2x Noctua 92mm case fans to suck air in from the front of the case

Other Stuff to complement:
Controllers: Logitech G27 Racing Wheel, 2x Logitech F710 wireless controllers (for coop goodness), Logitech G700 Wireless mouse, cheap logitech wireless keyboard, IR MCE remote, 2x PS2 controllers + 2->1USB PS1/2 controller adapter (rendered somewhat redundant by the F710s)
TV: LG 50" Plasma
Audio: Yamaha HDMI Reciever with 5.1 speakers configured
UPS: Belkin combined power-board/UPS with USB control for graceful shutdowns in power outages.
NAS: Former media PC with i5-750, 4GB ram, 5.5TB RAID5 (4x 2TB) attached via eSATA, 1.5TB USB drive (non-essentials), 320GB internal drive, Ubuntu 10.10 (oh god...gotta upgrade this)

The biggest notable change in there is the graphics card. Why a dirty big GTX580 you ask?

1) Nvidia are taking their sweet-arse time releasing the mid-high level 600s (e.g. 660 GTX)
2) The GTX 580 SOC is out of my primary gaming desktop. To replace it, I've gone for a GTX670 which comes up faster in practically all tests and uses less power. So my desktop gets an upgrade while the media PC gets a monster card which I KNOW can handle damn near everything at 1080p.
3) The GTX 580 SOC is surprisingly quiet...really. My Zalman CPU cooler in my desktop makes more of a ruckus than that thing (and I have my PC on my desk, not under it).

***Virtu MVP
Many of you might look at that and think "wtf is that?". In short, think of it as notebook/laptop style "switchable-graphics" for desktops.
The website can be found here:
http://www.lucidlogix.com/product-virtu-mvp.shtml

At first, I was pretty sceptical, I've had some experience with switchable graphics on laptops and it tends to be nothing short of a nightmare. If this was anything but a media PC I'd just ignore it and turn it off. But the one thing that intrigued me was this:
"The main benefit from this ‘Switchable Graphics’ feature, is that you can power down your graphics card when running less GPU-intensive 2D tasks."

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realise what this could mean for power consumption in a system that may be running 24/7 with a beefy graphics card. The onboard Intel card should be viable enough for the regular XBMC stuff, then when any gaming happens the GTX 580 fires up from a complete sleep state (not just idle where significant power is still being drawn). If it can indeed turn the graphics card off entirely, then it's far more viable to have this machine running longer.

Either way I remain cautious until I can give it a proper test. At worst I just run with a regular discrete card setup.

[argh!]

I would have to strongly suggest a 2gb video card. Also, get a separate audio card that supports DTS and Dolby. The onboard audio is fine - it's the same one i have on my desktop, but even my old mid-range audio card (and X-Fi) sounds FAR better, and the difference will be noticeable when outputting to a fancy AVR.

Looks pretty balanced, otherwise.

[Stewge]

I would have to strongly suggest a 2gb video card. Also, get a separate audio card that supports DTS and Dolby. The onboard audio is fine - it's the same one i have on my desktop, but even my old mid-range audio card (and X-Fi) sounds FAR better, and the difference will be noticeable when outputting to a fancy AVR.

Looks pretty balanced, otherwise.

You'll notice my 2nd post, the 1.5GB 580 SOC is actually a donor card from my desktop (to be replaced by a 670GTX). Not about to buy 2 new graphics cards and leave a GTX580 gathering dust, I'm not THAT rich...lol. Video memory is not so important if it's the difference between a low end card and a high end card.

The sound card thing is also irrelevant as the AVR I have uses HDMI to transport audio digitally. Since the sound remains entirely digital there's no need for a dedicated card as the only real benefit there is higher quality DACs and lower noise due to analog outputs. In a completely digital form, you can be sure the source audio gets to the speakers with minimal modification. Even if the AVR didn't have HDMI, most recent models have optical/toslink which I'd use and is preferable

[Stewge]

So another update.

Firstly, the GTX670 is a freakin beast of a thing (in my desktop)

On the media build, I've run into some roadblocks.

Firstly, the drive bay in the LC20B is 1 single piece, which presents a problem with long cards. While the LC20B "technically" does support very long graphics cards, you lose ALL 6 3.5" drive bays in doing that. Which in my opinion is a really poor effort on their part. What's worse, the 3.5" drive bay is also what contains the mounts for the 2 (and only) front mounting fans. In a Media PC setup, I imagine these are of utmost importance since they are responsible for 90% of the airflow in the case, given that the only thing exposed to room temperature air tends to be the front fascia.

Sorry about the poor pic taking skills:

While it does look like it "fits", you'll notice the top of the drive cage covers the PCIE power sockets on the card, and the bottom of the drive cage actually sits too high meaning the card doesn't sit in the PCIE slot

At this point, I immediately had to start thinking outside the box.
So I removed the drive cage for now, dug up an old 5.25" -> 3.5" converter bracket and stuck my 2TB hitachi into the spare 3.5" slot below the Bluray drive and left the drive cage out.

Top Down without the drive cage:


Now I have an abundance of room! But no front fans

For now at least, I have a platform to start working with the software side of things. I'm thinking of just taking a hacksaw to the drive cage and making a cutout where the graphics card is, that way I can keep the fans.

[Canozzie]

Thanks for the update Stewge, lc20 was my first pick until I cought up with yr update. How is the Virtu MVP working in regards to power/noise reduction? Do you find that it doesn't work with all your games?

[Stewge]

I found that on some things Virtu runs ok, but others it won't launch at all and there's no workaround.

In reality a good alternative is just to get Sleep working properly and get a remote capable of waking via USB.