Hi there, After some fantastic advice on here and a very successful gaming rig build earlier in the year I am considering building an HTPC. As you may be able to guess I know very little about this subject but I do have a good idea of requirements: 1. Silence, as quiet as possible 2. Low Power consumption 3. Playback of music files, possibly through squeezebox interface (have very good amp and speakers!!) 4. Downloading and playback of normal and Blueray movies from newsgroups. 5. Plenty of storage space, will probably backup to an external 6. Will probably be using XMBC on Windows 7 I have read about the Zotac and Ion systems but not sure if they would be powerful enough. The ASUS AT3IONT-I Deluxe seems a good idea as its already got a PSU and silent cooling but is it the best for my requirements? Budget wise <£400 if possible. I'd appreciate any help.....
Here's something I just saw the other day: http://www.silentpcreview.com/HTPC_Home_Server A ready specced machine with also power consumption and noise measurements, what else could you possibly ask for? Just drop the extra hard drives and add a blu-ray drive if needed, and that's it.
Meh yeah I completely missed the budget, but with a cheaper PSU and without all the hardwares the build is still a good place to start from. I wouldn't bother with mini-ITX because if you want storage, you'll end up with a large case anyway and a HTPC-case is pretty optimal for.. well.. HTPC-use.
Have you considered building the case yourself?? You could save money on the case and get better hardware for example. Have a look at my HTPC project in my sig. I had some old components, just needed nice compact case, but didn't feel like spending £100-£150 for HTPC case. It probably can't be compared to proper HTPCs, but for my needs it works really well. I must said it was my first mod, so probably few things could be done better. I had very limited budget. I am gonna make some changes to it this christmas Good luck with your project mate!
