Working on my HTPC, give me your opinions

[rsGTS]

Ok guys, I have been a lurker for a while and have finally decided to post and ask the opinions of everyone about my system build I am working on right now. :cool:
Ok I am building a HTPC (Home Theater PC) so I want it to be quiet and to be powerful enough to throw out my games at 720P at least (maybe 1080i as well, that would make me drool). I am also making it a PVR so I can start recording my Adult Swim and whatnot ;)
I am trying to make a decent system and keep it at a decent cost, not going all out on the latest stuff, but am not cutting any corners as well. I know this will be a decently long post, but please if you aren't going to read through the entire post at least scroll to the bottom to give me your opinion on MB and RAM!!
Ok here is what I have on order already:
Case is a Silverstone Lascala SST-LC13-B
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc13.htm
I like it for the nice clean look and hidden drives, the entire front panel swings up to hide all 4 drives.
I decided on an OCZ Modstream 450 for my power supply
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/power_management/ocz_modstream_power_supply
I know it is not as much of a beast as the Powerstream series, but I researched and read many reviews and it seems to be nice and stable under load, only thing lacking are the adjustable voltage rails, and I like the modular ability, and it looks damn sweet. I think it will be more than enough to handle what I will throw at it.
Right now I am thinking on getting a Venice 3200+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103534
It seems to be about the most cost effective solution right now, and I think I will be able to give it a bit of a boost with a OC. I have not bought it yet but I am pretty sure it is the best bet since it is under 200 bucks, but I was also thinking of the San Diego 3700+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539
But its prob is an extra almost 150 on the price, do you guys think it is worth almost double?
I will be cooling CPU with air, a coolermaster Hyper 6 to be exact
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835103144
I know it is the older model and I know it is extremely heavy, but this is a desktop form system so I dont think I will have to worry about stressing the MB from the weight, and I judged size closely and this is about the biggest I could fit inside the case I decided on. This one seemed like a good choice as it gets great temps even with it turned almost silent.
Oh yeah I almost forgot ;)
I will be replacing the stock fans in the case with some Evercool aluminium fans.
http://www.evercool.com/kor/pro_alu.htm
92 mm in front, and the case runs 2 60mm fans in the back, but I will prolly get out the dremel and mod it to fit 1 or 2 of the 80mm Evercools, will have to get the parts and see how many I can fit in the small space. I will probably replace the stock fan on the Hyper 6 with one of these 80mm fans as well if I can get it to fit up, will have to see. Everything I have read about these fans is they are total badasses, very large amount of airflow, and can barely hear anything but the sound of the air moving.
I know I want a fan controller and I am thinking of this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813999504
Looks pretty good as it can control 4 fans. I know for sure I will need either 3 or 4, depending on if I attach the CPU fan to this or the MB. This should allow me to adjust the loudness of system depending on if I am watching a quiet movie with my girl or trying to impress my buds with Doom 3 on my HDTV :p:
I will add in a floppy just to install RAID driver if needed, so the other floppy bay goes to my memory card reader.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820401701
This one gives me one more front USB and supports pretty much every card format including xD, in case I ever need more than what I use right now.
I am going for a Dual Layer DVD burner, I am upgrading from a ancient Plextor CDRW that has worked like a beast for like 5 years but I want something black to match the case, and I kinda want to be able to backup my PVR as well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106988
That one is pretty new but the reviews I read say it is nice and quiet and actually performs above its rated speeds in writes.
This leaves me with one front 5 1/4" bay open, any ideas on something good to put in there? It has to be black but I couldnt think of anything else I really needed up there. I guess I may use it for another HD eventually.
I am going for a nice large drive for this one, 300gb to be exact, it is amazing how much these things have dropped in price lately.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144363
I know its only SATA150 but it has great seek times and latency and it also has NCQ and a 16mb cache! May toss another in eventually if I ever run out of space on this one.
Ahh yes now down to my multimedia setup! I get a nice employee discount with ATI because I work for The Big Faceless PC manufacturer (don't hate me, it pays the bills rather decently) ;)
So I am going with a built by ATI X800 XL PCI-Express
http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2599078
Not gonna tell you how much the discount is, but lets just say it was close to half what the cost there is. w00t!
I am getting ATI's newest tuner with their theater 550pro at about half cost as well, I was dreading buying these 2 guys, but the discount made me mucho happy. :D
http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2608261
That bad boy has hardware mpeg-2 encoding and a 3D comb filter that makes its capture quality way better than any competitor on the market right now. :cool:
Ok and for the sound it is . . . . .
Probably something you have yet to hear of, but let me tell you about it!
http://www.frozencpu.com/snd-12.html
Remember Soundstorm? I am sure a few of you did, my bro had a system with that and let me tell you it was badass. Know what? This is the first PC audio solution that has what alot of us have been waiting for since Soundstorm was released - real-time Dolby Digital encoding, and optical Dolby Digital Live output!!!!!!
Of course I have to have an equally badass set of speakers to attach it to so here we have Logitech Z-5500 Digital, employee discount gets em for almost half as well :slobber:
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2177,CONTENTID=9486
Guess what? It takes the Dolby Digital Live optical output from the X-Mystique, real time hardware DDL over 1 cable for my movies and games!!! The only thing I am missing that Creative could give me is EAX HD, but imho screw that for what I am getting in return.

Ok, and now down to the big questions, what MB and RAM should I pick???
I am torn between 2 of them for the MB. I am either getting the new AN8 Ultra from Abit, (gives all the OCing options including up to 3.55 vdimm!!)
http://abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=278
In a decently priced package with no active NB cooling so I can make sure I get my quietness exactly how I want it to be. I have been reading up on this thread:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=62087
And it looks to have basically everything I want in a MB.
BUT . . . . . . . .
My other choice is not out yet :(
Any ideas on what it is? That's right it's the Grouper!!
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=64409&highlight=grouper
If you guys read over the specs you see what it has, totally badass by the looks of it, but of course it isn't out yet!!
The thing you and I have to consider though is I do not have the cash to build the entire system right now, it will be about another month until I can afford everything, so I may get lucky and Grouper may be out by then. ;)
Last of all, which RAM should I get, I am torn between 2 types, either OCZ VX, or Mushkin Redline
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_el_ddr_pc_4000_dual_channel_gold_vx
http://www.mushkin.com/doc/products/memory_detail.asp?ID=198
Any personal opinions on the 2 of these? From what I reaad the OCZ was top dog for a while for good latencies at high clocks, but the Mushkin seems to be close to if not as good!

So right now I have the case, power supply, fans, heatsink, video card, and TV tuner on order and will be ordering the rest over the next month to complete the build. I wanted to have the case first so I could mod the new fans into it and whatnot before I got the rest of the stuff. :p:
So let me know what you guys think, be as nice or as mean as needed to get your views across to me, I appreciate a bit of constructive criticism to get myself thinking! Thanks again for reading this longwinded post and I am looking forward to the replies I get from all of you!

[rise4310]

hey man, looks good. if you want heres my lascala l13 in action.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=45&threadid=1607885

i don't think that nexus fan controller will fit in there though because of the way the front curves in. i think you should look at the cm aero 3 i think it is. i might put one in mine if i keep it. currently they are hooked on to a pci slot controller that came with my psu.

you'll definitely want to replace the fans as you mentioned. i haven't got to it yet.

for the tuner i just got the 150. i think the only diference is the 550 has the dual tuners and perhaps the fm radio. if it does have fm and its a selling point for you then i hear it should not be if you know what i mean. the dual tuners are nice but i didn't need it. i'll wait for some more hdtv tuners to hit.

i already had my p4, mobo, hd, ram and psu lying around so you're lucky you get to choose it all. only so far as i wish i had pci-e and not agp.

i do notice you mentioning oc'ing and i'll just mention that this, nor any really, htpc case is good for oc'ing. you realize the 92mm front mounted fan has no intake grill? it just pushes the air about the case. you can see my temps and thats a northwood with no voltage bumps. those are about 8-10c higher than i got in my cm praetorian.

[rsGTS]

Thanks about the heads up on the fan controller, I will look at the other one like you said. That is one of the reasons I was waiting to get the fan controller until I measured it after I got my case. BTW, the 550 has dual tuners, a 3d comb filter AND HARDWARE mpeg-2 encoding!!!! As far as the overclocking goes I will be getting a venice or a san diego which both run very cool at normal speed and can get a 300 to 400 mhz over clock and still be cooler than a P4. Thanks for the reply!! Fedex shows some of my stuff arriving tomorrow!! w00t!

[rsGTS]

My bro had a Nexus fan controller in his system and we test fitted it in my case and it fits with about 1 mm of clearance. =p
Awesome!

[rsGTS]

bump + alot of stuff has arrived, and I am starting to mod my case a bit!!
I started by using the trusty Dremel to cut out the stamped metal grills from the 92 and both 60 mm fans, I also replaced all 3 fans with evercool aluminium high flow fans (quiet but move big CFM). I found out the the screws that came with my Hyper6 wont fit the Evercool 80mm fan which I want to replace the stock with, so I need to go to Home Depot or Lowes to find some longer screws.
I also found out that the center bracket that runs from the front drive cage back to the rear of the case is directly above where the CPU will mount, so the Hyper6 was too tall by about 1/4 of an inch. . . . So I got out the Dremel for that too and notched out then rolled over the steel edge to make no sharp edges. So it fits now! ;)
The Abit AN8 Ultra is still not available in the US so I decided to upgrade a bit since I know it will be a little while until I can put it together completely. I ordered 2 250gb Maxtor Maxline III hard drives (NCQ with 16mb cache per drive!!), and have the CD drive, fan controller, card reader, cables, and additional grills etc on the way now. Matching all my cables, getting cables that are exactly correct length etc. I know I am prolly overdoing the details, but I want this system to impress with performance, looks, and stability, so I am putting the extra time into it.
I am also thinking of cutting out a hole on the top of the case for a 120mm fan intaking air directly over the RAM, I ordered a black aluminium fan filter, and a black wire fan grill, so I will play around with those and see if it looks like it will fit after I get most everything in the system.
If you guys see any holes in my setup or have any advice it would be much appreciated.
I thought I saw some issues happening with the Venice and the Abit board, can anyone confirm that for me? If it is true, and since I have to wait a bit longer for the board anyway, I most likely will go to the San Diego 3700+ or a 4400+ if I can manage it, that would be super sweet.
Oh do any of you guys think this case with the way I am modding it would have heat issues with any of the things I am planning on doing with it? I want to get at least to 2600Mhz and run 1:1 at at least 250fsb, which I think I can manage with the MB RAM CPU setup I am looking at now, but not sure if the X2 would overdo the heat factor going into those speeds.
Thanks to all that reply, or even read my posts, I know they are long.
:p: