Hi All, I'm an old head with the PC scene having built PC's before, but for the past 5 years have totally been out of it. Therefore please treat me like a Newbie, whilst I learn from what you guys say. Now that I've come back to the game, it's all gone a bit OTT, with overclocking every major component in the PC, not to mention so much choice for so many different rigs. Anyway, I want to build a HTPC, with occasional gaming, HD video conferencing and online streaming. As I wanted it sat in my lounge, I wanted it to be discrete and RELATIVELY quite and energy efficient. Yet, the way I am, I want to get every last ounce of performance out of my system for my budget of £600. I cherry picked this HTPC, so everything works well together and fits in place, but at the same time not being too loud or run too hot. - Silverstone SG06-450W Mini-ITX Case (£80) - Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3 Mini ITX MOBO (£70) - Intel Core i5-760 (£100) or Intel i7-875k (£150) - Corsair H50 Liquid Cooling CPU system (£50) - Corsair Dominator GT PC3-17066 2133Mhz 4GB (2x2GB) with fan kit (£50) - MSI/Asus Radeon HD 5850 1GB (£120) - Western Digital Caviar Black 7200rpm 64Mb cache 2TB Hard Drive (£80) - Some cheap but decent slimline Bluray player (£50) TOTAL - £600 (i5) or £650 (i7) **Please Note: to achieve this pricing some of the items will be used, but with reciept and in very good condition. Not to mention the recent drop in price over the next month or two, due to the new year and new models.** So what do you guys reckon? Still stuck on the CPU. Don't know if it is worth it to go the extra £50 to get an i7 over the i5. The only noticeable difference I can see between the two is Hyperthreading and triple channel. If I go with the i7 then, I'll need to buy another stick to match the triple channel and balance the system. Also, do these components complement each other well and provide a good basis for overclocking. The RAM is 2133Mhz PC3-17066 whilst the motherboard can work with up to 2200+Mhz from the RAM. Therefore as stock settings, can both items be set to these levels from the beginning and they'd compliment each other to run even faster than unmatched items? Leaving just the CPU to overclock to around 4.0Ghz to bring it inline with the fast rates being achieved with the MOBO and RAM. I think I don't need to or want to overclock the gfx card, as it's already a monster with it's whirrling fan, so don't want it to heat up in such a small case. Even though it's placement is to one side and the fan directly next to the big side vents to be able to draw in the fresh air. As you notice the case is pretty small, and everything will be snugly fit. Therefore ventilation needs to be spot on. The RAM comes with it's own dual fan kit, and so does the graphics card and case. In fact the case is very well ventilated with two fans, including a big 120mm 800/1200rpm golf ball fan, and the Corsair Hydro Water cooling system for the CPU. I think that will keep things cool and quite. So what do you guys reckon?
id say proper overkill for a media PC and a lot of stuff you want to do isnt possible. i7 doesnt mean triple channel - thats 1366 platform not 1156 which is what you have selected. the i7 for 1156 does however have HT. The H50 wont fit in the case you have chosen not even close. The mobo you have chosen will not allow for awesome overclocks from an i5/i7 since you have picked a H55 chipset board which isnt the best for i5/i7. the case is so compact that airflow will be extremely limited and i tihnk 4Ghz inside that case will be very very toasty indeed and i doubt it be stable. The RAM is mega overkill and you wont really get any noticeable real world performance by going above 1600mhz RAM. also the RAM you listed as £50 ????? from where scan listed it at £110 ! i dont think the high profile + Fan helps either and im pretty sure that wont fit either. The PSU is too weak for the card you have selected too you need at least a 400-500W PSU. i would imagine even if the system fit together it will be hot and noisy oh and welcome to the forums SP sorry for the harsh first repsonse to be honest something better for an HTPC build would be: an i3 530 to match your board + geil tranquillo low profile CPU cooler. with 4GB of DDR1600 a decent 400W PSU what resolution are you going to be gaming at and are max details important ?
Don't completely agree with what adam has said there, but it is an overkill setup for an HTPC. That said, if you wanted the fastest HTPC possible for the price, then in a way it does make sense. It's your money, put it that way. What resolution is your TV? Overall, I'd make the decision, do you want to save money and get a good build for the money, or do you want the fastest possible? I'd make that decision then continue from there. Just a point, though nothing really to do with the topic, just something mentioned, but the H55/H57 chipsets are very good chipsets, and aren't bad at all for overclocking. For the most part, they are equal to, maybe slightly worse, than the P55 chipsets overall. Not bad going for such a cheap option.
Hi guys and thanks for the responses. As it is going to sit in my lounge, I want the Form factor to be as small as possible, hence the mITX board. I went for the cube style case, as it has more space for an aftermarket fan to fit and has very good ventilation on all sides and the GFX is on one side with it's fan directly next to the side ventilation for maximum air suction. I understand it is overkill in terms of RAM and GFX card, but at the same time, I will be occasionally be gaming. Also I want it to be future proof. Plus the difference between a lesser system and this high end system is around £100, which for me makes more sense and bung for buck to go for the system I have put together. Plus I've budgeted £600, so want to use it all. In regards to the PSU, it does fall within the 400W-500W as it is 450W 80% efficiency PSU at 36amps. Surely this will be enough. In regards to the H55 board. As it's primarily going to be a HTPC and the fact I've put in overkill components anyway, I probably won't need to overclock and instead can I decrease the RAMs clock speed from 2133Mhz down to 1600Mhz allowing me to decrease the latency to something like 7-6-6-20. That way, the RAM will not be heating up alot and I get better performance out of it. My mate is selling his 2 week old RAM as it doesn't for his MOBO. Hence the excellent price. If the H50 doesn't fit, then will have to go with a good after market cooler fan.
A Corsair H50 will fit actually - don't listen to adam - but there won't be any other fans in the case then the single 120mm fan of the radiator. If you choose this case with a standard i5-750, not overclocking anything then it'll work. Stuff a nVidia 460GTX or AMD 5850 into the case for playing games and you're done. If you're going to OC your stuff, then the Sugo 06 has too little possibilities of cooling the system down, so you might want to think about for another time.
Have you considered replacing the 5850 with a GTX460 variant? I think the GTX460 has a quiet cooler, and isn't as hot running.. Also you really need to decide what you want, high performance OC'd machines need a efficient way of removing heat energy which generally isn't quiet the smaller you go. The spec with the i5 looks to be the better value to me, but swap out the 5850 for the GTX460 and your golden, or maybe just maybe give the 6850 and 6870 a look.
You still haven't mentioned the resolution of your TV However, as you want it to be future-proof (if there's such a thing...), the i5 is a good choice. It doesn't work out too much more expensive than the Phenom II X4, and it is much faster. The main thing here is to stick with the quad, as many games in the future will require more than two cores, but don't really need the fastest quad around or anything like that. Would you be willing to a micro-ATX board though? That would be a far better choice than the ITX board, namely better cooling for the graphics card, and more space to work in. I'd be looking at a setup like this: i5 760 Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H Gigabyte GTX460 1GB Decent micro-ATX case that takes your fancy. My question though...the hard drive, where are you getting it at that price? That's £47 under retail...I presume that that's a second hand part?
sorry didnt see the 450W when i googled the case it was a review of the 300W version it seems. my bad. im still not sure the H50 would fit plus it would be the only intake for the system. if it does fit its gunna be tight. nice price on the RAM then saving a bit there, you must have a good friend.
Yep, and that's the shocking part! Same drive here: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-275-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279 Now, OcUK can be expensive, but not £47 more expensive! An addition, if you moved to the micro-ATX case, you'd need to buy a new power supply. As a cheap option, a Corsair CX-series would do. More expensive...XFX XXX series are well-priced, decent modular choices that provide plenty of power.
Excellent. I agree, the components are high end anyway for a HTPC, so they will more than do a good job in stock configuration. So won't be overclocking it. In the future, if I do decide to OC, then I'll just get a bigger case. So all in all, can be a successful build with no problems.
Exactly what I was thinking! The HD 6870 comes out at the same price as the existing models, yet is better than the HD 5850, consumes less power (274W under load) and with a redesigned cooler, is probably cooler than before. It's either the HD6870 or the GTX460. Now which of these is better at video encoding, transcoding, compressing, uncompressing, playing HD material etc. I ask thi because even though in benchmark Card A maybe be better than Card B overall, but in the case of HD movies and codecs, Card B might be better. So more suited to my needs.
Oops, should read £90 for the HDD drive. As I can get it from a local shop the same mate works in, he gets 20% discount and the price of the HDD is £115 in the shop. Same mate thats sorted me out with the ram.
Here's a Sugo 05-build with similar hardware you're going to use -> http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=193965 It uses a H70 tho, which is a good bit bigger then the H50. The H50 will be a better fit and leaves the space for the slim BD/DVD open Nevertheless it'll be a very tight fit and you'll have to do some modifications, if you're going to use the H50. An aircooler will make it way easier to build the rig, but it'll get a little bit noisier aswell. A tower-cooler won't fit in any case, so the best choice will probably be something like this -> http://www.prolimatech.com/en/products/detail.asp?id=157&page=1 I'd say however... throw the BD/DVD-drive out of the case and get an external one if needed and you'll have no problem with the H50.
MY GOSH!! Thats exactly what I'm building right down to every component, well apart from storage, but hey. This is perfect and very helpful. I can follow his guide and build it in the same way. I thought the 5870 wouldn't fit in my case (SG06), well this guy got it to fit in a SG05 case which is 10mm shorter. He had to mod it cause it was out by 5mm, so in theory I just need to fit in the card without issue of space as I have an extra 10mm on him. But see guys, with the right mentality, he got it running really cool and stable. And using the sleeves and correct length cables, everything fits in snugly and very neatly.
