Light gaming/htpc build help

[lslugz]

My wife and I are about to move into our own place and would like to build a HTPC for the living room, it will be replacing my very loud PS3 as my main bluray player and source for streaming my movies, pics, and music. I will have most of my media content on a NAS so I wont need a big hard drive. I do plan on doing some light gaming on it, Day of defeat, CS, source, and BF2. Any help would be great so thanks in advanced.

Approximate Purchase Date: (By the end of the week)

Budget Range: (400-600 After Rebates)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: (Watching and backing up blurays/dvds, light gaming, streaming hd movies, music, and photos, surfing the web)

Parts Not Required: (monitor, speakers)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: (newegg or microcenter 2miles from my house)

Country of Origin: (usa)

Parts Preferences: by brand or type (open to anything)

Overclocking: no

SLI or Crossfire: no

Monitor Resolution: (1920x1080)

Additional Comments: (would like to keep it quite)

 

[gkay09]

^ Here is a build with a very good combo from Microcenter
Choose the X4 640 + The MSI 785GM-P45 AM3 mATX** board
http://www.microcenter.com/specials/promotions/AMDbundlePROMO.html

RAM
GSKillz 4GB DDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231253

CASE - NZXT Gamma
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146061

HD 6850
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

Samsung F3 1TB
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0340562

DVD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135221

PSU - OCZ Mod 600W
$10 off w/ promo code EMCZNPY25, ends 1/5/11
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341017

Total - ~$462 After rebates and this can easily play most of the games @high settings @ 1080p

 

[blackjellognomes]

^+1, although a 5770 would be fine for Source games @ FHD if you can't go over $600.

Edit: If you can increase your budget by ~$100, I would definitely recommend getting the 6850, as well as a proper HTPC case.

 

[lslugz]

thanks gkay09,

Microcenter didn't have that board in stock so i'm going back on saturday to see if they got some more in. My wife and I are in the process of picking the HTPC case, my wife likes http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811204037 and i like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163117 any opinions on them? A buddy of mine gave me a spare 320gb hard drive so I have a little extra money to spend, i still have to buy a bluray player. Like i said this will be mostly for watching/ripping blurays, streaming content, surfing the web and mild gaming.

 

[gkay09]

^ Both are very good cases,... Why not make your wife happy and go with that case

BD - If you want to just BD read capablity, then maybe get a BD Combo, that read BD and writes DVDs,...
Or you can get a BD writer,...

If it is going to be light gaming, then you can drop the graphics card to something lower like the HD 5770 and with money saved, maybe a SSD ??

 

[blackjellognomes]

The nMEDIAPC 6000B is a great choice; it's actually my favorite on the market, atm. The Silverstone will likely be a bit sturdier, but the 6000B features better ventilation, fans, and connectivity (front eSATA port and card reader) at ~$30 less. The only reason I would consider the Silverstone is for the second external 5.25" bay.

 

[lslugz]

I bought the nMEDIAPC 6000B and i was thinking of throwing my ASUS EAH5670 from my budget gaming pc, that should run those games and handle my blurays right? I would rather upgrade my gaming pc's video card, i bought the asus when my old card died on me and i was looking for something cheap to get me by.

 

[blackjellognomes]

Sounds like a plan. No reason to have a stronger GPU in your HTPC if you're gaming rig's hooked up to a FHD display as well.
Besides BF2, I think you can expect 60+ fps averages for those games. This thread has some nice benchies for the 5670, including BFBC2. BF2 uses a different engine and I'm not familiar with either, but I'm guessing BF2 would run even smoother, probably 50+ average. And yes, the 5670 would be overkill for Blu-ray alone.

 

[gkay09]

HD 5670 would make a great HTPC card, also would give decent gaming performance,...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2917