HTPC design help

[polsy37]

My HTPC will be used for both movies and gaming on a 133" projected by a panasonic PTAE-3000, and ran through a pioneer elite SC-07. I have a few concerns, I was hoping someone could help me with.

Case: Thermaltake Mozart Media Lab VC4000SNS - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133168

Motherboard - ASUS P5Q Premium LGA 775 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131326

Processor - Intel Q9550 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041

Video Card - GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130434

Also, ram, drive, etc, probably not pertinent to my questions.

Questions:
1. Do I need a sound card for good quality 7.1, even though I have the motherboard with toslink and the video card? If so, what would you recommend?

2. What do I need to add to this machine to be able to control it with my harmony remote?

3. Do I need a tv tuner, even though I won't be watching tv on this screen?

4. Will this home theatre setup work?

5. Any other suggestions?

 

[polsy37]

My HTPC will be used for both movies and gaming on a 133" projected by a panasonic PTAE-3000, and ran through a pioneer elite SC-07. I have a few concerns, I was hoping someone could help me with.

Case: Thermaltake Mozart Media Lab VC4000SNS - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133168

Motherboard - ASUS P5Q Premium LGA 775 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131326

Processor - Intel Q9550 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041

Video Card - GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130434

Also, ram, drive, etc, probably not pertinent to my questions.

Questions:
1. Do I need a sound card for good quality 7.1, even though I have the motherboard with toslink and the video card? If so, what would you recommend?

2. What do I need to add to this machine to be able to control it with my harmony remote?

3. Do I need a tv tuner, even though I won't be watching tv on this screen?

4. Will this home theatre setup work?

5. Any other suggestions?

Also, with my receiver, do I just need a card that can pass through a 7.1 signal, and let the receiver decode it?

 

[hunter315]

Are you just going to be using it as a HTPC or are you going to be gaming on it too? Also whats the resolution of the projector? If you arent going to be gaming or doing any heavy tasks you can save a bunch and get an AMD 720 and a 790GX for significantly less and it will perform just as well and produce less heat.

 

[polsy37]

Gaming and movies, the resolution of the projector is 1920x1080.

 

[TwoDigital]

> 1. Do I need a sound card for good quality 7.1, even though I have the motherboard with toslink and the video card? If so, what would you recommend?

An audiophile would probably always say to buy an isolated card for audio... personally I wouldn't notice and wouldn't bother if your toslink will export 7.1 audio that your receiver can properly decode.

> 2. What do I need to add to this machine to be able to control it with my harmony remote?

You'll want an IR receiver. Most of them are tiny rectangle boxes that connect via USB cable to the computer... NewEgg probably has 50 of 'em to choose from. The Harmony remote will let you choose "Windows Media Center" as a device from their setup program.

> 3. Do I need a tv tuner, even though I won't be watching tv on this screen?

You'll only need a tuner if you want to watch TV. For decoding BluRay or other video your GTX260 will be slickity-diptity. You DO have a $120 BluRay drive on this thing and not just a DVD drive, right?

> 4. Will this home theatre setup work?

It's grossly overpowered but it should work just great. That's probably going to be a noisy setup, however. I just went through my system and spent about $100 on ultra-quiet fans and to get rid of the LED blinky-lights that came in some of the components.

5. Any other suggestions?

Not at the moment...

 

[batuchka]

My suggestion (with BR ODD)