Gunslash

Just ordered the following for a new HTPC rig:

XFX MI93007 AS9 LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813141015

Scythe SCSK-1100 100mm Shuriken Rev. B 3 Heat Pipes CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835185097

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F2EG HD154UI 1.5TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152175

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136075

APEVIA Black SECC Steel / Aluminum X-MASTER-BK/500 ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811144231

My "old" HTPC rig (Dell Q6600, 3gb ram, HD2600XT) I am gifting to my pops since he needs an office computer, and this gave me an excuse to build a new one.

My reasoning behind this rig is to keep it cool & quiet, I also ordered a few low RPM scythe fans. The 1.5TB samsung internal drive will be for all the media storage and the WD will be for the OS/Software. On my current rig, I'm using an external drive for media storage, but I'd rather have it all in one box. I have a few spare ram sticks laying around, I'll put in 4GB. The onboard video should be enough for HD playback. For CPU choice I have the following laying around: E2160, E8600, X3220. I want to use the E2160, but I'm not sure if it will be powerful enough for all my HD content needs. X3220 will probably be overkill for this kinda rig ( I'll do all my decoding on my sig rig), so maybe the E8600 which I can further undervolt by a good margin for even less heat & power consumption.
I had some old hard drives here and there, but I decided to go with brand new ones for peace of mind.
I don't have a TV Tuner card because I don't watch TV on my HTPC. I already have a bluray/hddvd drive.
Any suggestions?

corky dorkelson

You would be surprised at how powerful the E2160 will be. I think you will be fine playing back 1080p on it. If not, you can always just bump up that FSB to around 250-300 and keep EIST enabled. Great parts, by the way. Which scythe fans did you pick? Without a GPU in there you can probably get away with a 120 intake and a 120 exhaust, all set on the lowest possible speeds.

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Gunslash

I got two of these:
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21D 120mm Case Fan - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835185004

newegg also apparently has a special so they each came with a free
Scythe SY124010L Fans - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835185039


I had that CPU running at 3.2ghz about a year ago, so if need be I can bump it just a tad bit I suppose

Gunslash

well just got all my parts except the motherboard in (shipped from different newegg warehouse). Next week is go time for the build
I'll start with the E2160 and see how it does. If anything, I can always swap one of my other s775 CPUs in there.

Enigma8750

From what I have learned about HTPC is not what your gonna run but what is gonna be running in the background while you are trying to watch a blue ray. Im an amd guy but I will use one of the low power 4 core chips for my upgrade because windows is always doing something in the background and one thing I cant stand is my Blu ray movie to lag on me because windows has decided to do an update or my anti virus is doing a sweep.

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Proud Phenom1st