Proposed HTPC build questions.

Sheepish

Distinguished
Aug 25, 2006
129
0
18,680
Hi,

Im trying to piece together an htpc build for my brother.
My goal is as silent as possible for as cheap as possible (dont think I can justify an extra £45 for the Nesteq Semi Fanless PSU).

Lian Li PC-V800B
E2140 or E6300 (new 2140 or putting in my existing E6300)
Gigabyte P35 S3 with onboard
2gb ram
500gb Hdd
iMon LCD + Remote
420W or 480W (20db) Xilence PSU or (12-17db) 400W NorthQ
HSF - Noctua 90mm



Anyone spot any problems with this build?
The Noctua HSF is 128mm and the Lian Li case 160mm.
Id hope the 400/480W PSU is enough for lower C2D's and possibly a future purchase of a 2400XT right?

Any suggestions much appreciated!

~Sheepy
 

coldmast

Distinguished
May 8, 2007
664
0
18,980
with the PSU the fan is pointed downward, you are going to need to use a video card cooler or a positionable internal fan to cool your cards.

will the Noctua FIT? are Lian Li Specs internal or external... I would check this thing out in person.
 

utaka95

Distinguished
Jan 12, 2006
375
0
18,780
I have an HTPC in a Silverstone case, use a very low noise Seasonic 330W power supply, it only has one 80 mm case fan and in a years time I've never had heat issues. The machine has 2 hard drives, 2 dvd burners, 2 gigs of ddr ram, sound card, and the 330 keeps up admirably. I was gonna get a 2400XT as well and I'm gonna upgrade my PSU to a seasonic 380 at the same time.
 
I've been doing some research to build a new HTPC either at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

If you plan on watching BluRay or HD-DVD then you should buy the E6300 instead of the E2140. Also I would get a nVidia 8600GT because it offloads video decoding from the CPU to the GPU. So far there has been no reviews of the 2400XT as to how well it can decode HD video content. See below for 8600GT video decoding benchmarks:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2977&p=4

Als o, nVidia cards traditionally draws less power than their ATI counterparts over the past 3 generations of GPUs. That means less heat is emitted by the GPU.

Seasonic S12 power supplies are really quiet premium PSUs. I have the S12 500 and I cannot hear it over the ambient noise. The S12 430 is the quietest PSU out of the entire series, but the S12 330 or S12 380 will have no problems powering up your proposed system.

The Lian Li PC-V800B is the very same case I am considering for my next build. It is small and has good ventilation, but large enough to fit a standard ATX motherboard. One problem is that the PSU is at the front of the case, so a quiet PSU like the Seasonic S12 is a must.