HTPC fun.... ridonkulous budget...

[tet5uo]

My dad has decided he wants a kick-arse HTPC/Gaming rig.

He's given me carte-blanche , money-is-no-object authorization!

So far this is what i have....

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=27784
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=22958
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=28019
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=27231
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=27531
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=25177
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=26214
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=25316
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=26553
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=27943 (4 or 6 of these in a raid array!!)
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=16593
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=22441



He's also getting a new 52" + LCD TV and a surround system...

I'm gonna want to move back in after this beast is installed :ROTF:

Anyone know of some good software that might be handy on an HTPC?

[Polizei]

Just list the part names instead of links.

[tet5uo]

Yeah true, links wouldn't work for everyone...

I'd edit and make these clickable, but I'm too lazy :)


Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core Processor LGA775 3.0GHZ Wolfdale 1333FSB 6MB Retail
Intel BOXDX38BT Bonetrail ATX LGA775 X38 DDR3 2PCI-E16 PCI-E1 2PCI Sound GBLAN 1394A Motherboard
Patriot Viper Extreme Performance 4GB DDR3 2X2GB PC3-10666 DDR3-1333 CL 7-7-7-20 Memory Kit
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 1.8GHZ GDDR3 2XDVI HDTV Out PCI-E DIRECTX10.1 Video Card
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad Crossfire 750W ATX V2.2 EPS12 24PIN Active PFC Power Supply Red
HT Omega Claro Plus + 7.1 Channel PCI Sound Card 24BIT DTS Dolby Digital Live S/PDIF IN/OUT Coaxial
ASUS WL-160W Super Speed Wireless USB2.0 Adapter 802.11 Draft N 270 Mbps
LG GGC-H20L BLU-RAY HD-DVD Reader BD-ROM 6X HD DVD-ROM 3X DVD+-RW 16X8X6 DL 4X Black SATA Software
Western Digital RE2 RAID Edition 500GB SATA2 7200RPM 8.9MS 16MB NCQ Hard Drive
Highpoint Rocketraid 2320 8 Channel SATA2 RAID PCI-E4 Controller
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition 32BIT DVD OEM
Moneual 932B Black HTPC ATX Case 5.25 4X3.5INT W/ 7" Touch Screen Remote Card Reader No PS/KEYBOARD

[little_scrapper]

Well if money no object why not a 9 series Quad cor and a pair of 8800 ultras?

That case isnt gonna have enough cooling for a gaming rig!!

And for Christ sakes.. loose the Vista!!! Vista doesnt game... it doesnt know how to game. Vista is noob at gaiming.

Also why not get 32MB cache drives? I hear you get another 2-3% boost from the extra cache and newer interface. a few % is a few %... Ill take it since it the same price.

[tet5uo]

Well, he's not gonna be overclocking anything so we'll see about the cooling... he's just set on having a case in that style... so it fits in with his AV equip...

As for the vista, I think that currently it's the only option if you're gonna want to play blu-ray/hd-dvd content...least that's what i've heard.

I figured I'd avoid a dual 8800 set up due to the small case constraint and the heat concerns of that sandwich. Heat was also the reason for not wanting to pop in a quad...He's not going to be primarily gaming on thsi thing, it will most likely see most of it's duty playing movies and music.

Also, good call on the 32mb cache drives, I hadn't even noticed that those were starting to become common... perhaps I should use some 1tb drives instead with 32mb cache :)

[little_scrapper]

OK that makes sense. Gaming is a very secondary concern. From what I "read" it doesnt take a hot GPU at all to play Blu RAY nor does it take a hot and fast CPU.

Keep in mind that the porno industry seems to be looking at Blu-ray. If you dont recall or are too young to remember... It was the porno industry that single handedly crushed the Sony betamax by using the VHS format. And, mark my words.. hear me now and invest your money properly because the porn industry WILL determine who wins out in the HD DVD/BLU-RAY battle!!!

Because nobody is going to buy a second player just so they can watch porno. And since EVERYBODY watches porno eventually... the porno industry WILL be the force weilding the axe!!! Trust me on this. You cannot go against 900 million perverts!!!! The boobies will set the rulz.

[tet5uo]

Trust me on this. You cannot go against 900 million perverts!!!! The boobies will set the rulz.

ROFL :rofl:

[S1mon-]

Well if money no object why not a 9 series Quad cor and a pair of 8800 ultras?

That case isnt gonna have enough cooling for a gaming rig!!

And for Christ sakes.. loose the Vista!!! Vista doesnt game... it doesnt know how to game. Vista is noob at gaiming.

Also why not get 32MB cache drives? I hear you get another 2-3% boost from the extra cache and newer interface. a few % is a few %... Ill take it since it the same price.


Vista is mandatory for DX10 :rolleyes: :p:

[bot@xs]

i would not worry about the case heat wise.
it's a mid tower laying on the side. it's not sff in anyway.
why not get the asus p5k3 w/wifi ap. nice board and you could drop the
usb wifi dongle. i just not to crazy about the dongle. (meeh)
if you go vista, i would with x64. nothing extra needed, it comes with
media center already.

[disruptfam]

5 x 1000gb hd's

5tb's of fun

and auzentech prelude

dual tv tuner

and zalman touch screen case forgot name...

[little_scrapper]

I cannot argue with blunt logic like that. Its too true and totally inescapable!

Is vista's DX10 mandatory for HD-DVD or BLU RAY?

Regardless, keep in mind that Warner Brothers decision to abandon HD DVD is the confirmation - for those who needed it - that Blu-ray has indeed won the battle for high-def video format. Now only Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures support HD DVD.

Warner owns one of the biggest movie libraries in Hollywood. Most other major studios - Sony Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Twentieth Century Fox (news corp)- are committed to Blu-ray exclusively.

The porno industry and most of the major players in the video buisness are endorsing Blu Ray. hd-dvd WILL and IS going the way fo the betamax. Bye-bye. So if your buying a player, buy a bluray.

[tet5uo]

I cannot argue with blunt logic like that. Its too true and totally inescapable!

Is vista's DX10 mandatory for HD-DVD or BLU RAY?

Regardless, keep in mind that Warner Brothers decision to abandon HD DVD is the confirmation - for those who needed it - that Blu-ray has indeed won the battle for high-def video format. Now only Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures support HD DVD.

Warner owns one of the biggest movie libraries in Hollywood. Most other major studios - Sony Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Twentieth Century Fox (news corp)- are committed to Blu-ray exclusively.

The porno industry and most of the major players in the video buisness are endorsing Blu Ray. hd-dvd WILL and IS going the way fo the betamax. Bye-bye. So if your buying a player, buy a bluray.


I think it's the HDCP part of things that is only in Vista...




and you have entirely too much pr0n on your mind :)

[iadstudio]

and probably too much in his collection too. With a name like "little scraper" I'd be careful about devulging a love of pron.

I would go with a qadcore for the HTPC. Makes sense on all sorts of levels and a 45nm wouldn't give you heat problems if you're not OCing.

[little_scrapper]

Actually I really dont watch porno anymore. I did my 2 week or so stint when I first got online about 12 years ago. But after that, it was like.. ehhh whatever. Been there done that. As for my collection... I have exactly 3 pronos on DVD. And the interesting thing is I got them from my IT cousin, who got them by doing his homework.

His homework was to write a spider. Which he unleashed o the schools network to search for media content. His spider came back with about 20GB, give or take, of MP3's. And.. 3 full lenght, high quality, .avi files. Which were some pretty decent pornos. I thus converted them into divX of whatever the hell a dvd player plays and i have 3 disks. And I dont feal the least bit insecure about having them. Once in a while the wife and i...well you know.

[tet5uo]

when are the rest of the yorkfields being released anyhow?

[iadstudio]

no solid date as far as I know. But rumors put them out by the and of March.

[technodanvan]

5 x 1000gb hd's

5tb's of fun

and auzentech prelude

dual tv tuner

and zalman touch screen case forgot name...

Does the Prelude work correctly in Vista now?

[KoHaN69]

That's going to be one loud HTPC.
Scale it down a bit, definitely no 3870X2

[tet5uo]

Yeah I might go with just a regular 3870.. he's probably not gonna know the difference, not being a heavy gamer, he still plays halo 1 and cod2 alot...

Would raid5 be workable for this type of rig? I want some kind of redundancy to protect all the media there's likely to be on this thing.

[xMrBunglex]

lol at all the pr0n rants...

the Bone Trail will be a good motherboard for HTPC use because of its built-in IR receiver/transmitter port. good call on that one.

the RAID card shouldn't be necessary - the Bone Trail has ICH9 RAID built-in. it can be used for RAID-0, 1, 5, or 10.

if, for some reason, you decide to go with XP instead of Vista, you absolutely have to slipstream your RAID driver into the install disc. don't even think about the F6 floppy install method. i used nLite (http://www.nliteos.com/) and loved it. it's a free program.

i like the sound card you picked - SoundBlasters are overrated and i'll personally never buy another one again.

i didn't check on what kind of TV he's getting, but i sure hope it's 1080p. all HDTV's are not created equal. tell him 1080i will suck for gaming. and if he's going 1080p, he'll definitely need a graphics powerhouse should he decide to start playing CoD4. that 3870 X2 will come in handy at that high resolution. maybe you could take that money from the RAID card and use it to buy a pair of Zalman vf900's or some other quiet cooling solution for the X2.

these are just my thoughts. it's a great looking build so far.