[dazzaw]

Motherboard: Asus P5N7A-VM GeForce 9300 Socket 775 onboard VGA DVI HDMI Display Port 8 channel audio mATX

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400

RAM: Kingston HyperX 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel

Hard Disks: 2xWestern Digital Caviar Blue 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache in raid0 as boot drive and a Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM as storage drive

PSU: Antec Signature Premium 650W Power Supply

Case: still undecided on this

there is no GPU or sound card as i chose the motherboard because its matx and has onboard hdmi capable graphics and audio, supporting upto 1080p

thoughts on this system?

it comes to a grand total of: £451.28 without the case

thanks

[JustinAiken]

Seems expensive!

[graysky]

Why have a RAID for your boot/system drive? Why use Windows? 650 W PS is waaaaay overkill for your system.

[dazzaw]

why use raid, for fast booting, why use windows, because ive never used linux and i know what im doing with windows, why that psu, because its pretty much silent and thats important too me

[ArtVandelae]

If you want fast booting then go with a solid state drive instead of some RAID0 nonsense as it will be faster, far more reliable and you won't have the extra noise of two hard drives running. You also don't need anything close to a 650 watt power supply for that system unless you eventually plan on running top end video cards in an SLI configuration or installing a ridiculous number of hard drives.

[TaeOH]

A solid state drive is something to consider if fast booting is why you are fussing with Raid.

The E8400 is eating up a chunk of change, the E7400 or E6300 would easily overclock past the 3 ghz minimum and without bumping up the volts and heat.

I also agree that your PSU is a bit much unless you plan on adding tons of drives. But getting a mATX is not the way to go if you want a ton of drives.

[graysky]

I would use this box as a Linux learning experience if I were you. It's worth the time you'll put into it

[dazzaw]

I also agree that your PSU is a bit much unless you plan on adding tons of drives. But getting a mATX is not the way to go if you want a ton of drives.

As i stated above, i went with this PSU as its important to me that the pc will be as silent as i can and this seems the best compromise between silence and cost, asto matx, im pretty much forced into this due to space available to me under my tv

A solid state drive is something to consider if fast booting is why you are fussing with Raid..

Ill look into this, nice idea

I would use this box as a Linux learning experience if I were you. It's worth the time you'll put into it

what would be the advantages of a htpc based on linux over windows?

[natethomas]

Don't listen to the linux fanboys. Windows is a perfectly acceptable alternative and one that won't force you to figure out video card or audio hardware drivers.

The ssd is a good idea, and from all I understand the e8400 would be more than you need for xbmc, but could be useful for other things (e.g. ripping and converting dvds).

[TaeOH]

As i stated above, i went with this PSU as its important to me that the pc will be as silent as i can and this seems the best compromise between silence and cost, asto matx, im pretty much forced into this due to space available to me under my tv

Understandable, but there are other quiet PSU's, Seasonic makes very quiet PSU's. Since space is going to be a factor, you might want to research quiet modular PSU's since it sounds like your case will be small.

I found this one pretty quick and it does happen to be Seasonic...
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article802-page1.html

I believe Seasonic also makes the Corsair HX520...
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article692-page1.html

[ivanmmj]

Don't listen to the linux fanboys. Windows is a perfectly acceptable alternative and one that won't force you to figure out video card or audio hardware drivers.

The ssd is a good idea, and from all I understand the e8400 would be more than you need for xbmc, but could be useful for other things (e.g. ripping and converting dvds).

Although, I DO agree that windows is a perfectly acceptable alternative, I haven't had to "figure out" ANY drivers in Linux in AGES. Now, if I want better graphics card drivers (JUST like in windows) I install a dedicated driver from the manufacturer.

Either way, with an Nvidia based card, neither linux nor windows will have an automatic advantage. (Unless you plan to run other things other than XBMC.) But if you want something that will be light and clean, then Linux, an nLited XP or Windows 7 will do. (Linux and an nLited XP being faster than 7.) Of course, this is all IMHO.

[dazzaw]

ill have another look at tweaking the spec over the weekend, when i have time, thanks for the input so far guys

[someone]

I just finished building an HTPC a couple of months ago with the following specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5050e - 2.6GHz Dual Core @ 45W - £47
Motherboard: BIOSTAR TFORCE TA790GX £75 - You could get a cheaper motherboard but I got this for the on board graphics which I later found out could not handle 1080p with filtering so had to get a dedicated graphics card
Graphics: HD 4550 £33
RAM: 2x2048MB OCZ DDR2 800MHZ £37
PSU: Coolermaster Silent Pro 500W £73
CPU Cooler: OCZ Vanquisher £15

Total: £280 Without case or hard drives.

The above can handle 1080p with filtering de-interlacing etc without any problems and takes no more than 1.5 minute from power on to boot and fully load XP. The components are low energy where possible so they run cooler than standard components, need less cooling & so less fans & slower fans so the setup is silent.

If you want faster load times go with an SSD as boot drive you dont want the extra noise from hard drives in RAID.

If you want to know the case & hard drives used then let me know.

[graysky]

what would be the advantages of a htpc based on linux over windows?

I don't want to get off topic - after all you did say 'specs for a windows based htpc.' I'll just say that you can use your htpc as an opportunity to learn Linux. Once you feel comfortable, I am convinced that you won't go back down the m$ bloatware road