Building a budget HTPC

[matta85]

Hi guys,

I've been reading up the last weeks about HTPC's. I've decided to build on a m-itx size motherboard in order to make it as small as possible.

Parts i've been considering so far:

Processor:
A6-3500 (65W) or A6-3670 (100W) - I'm not sure which one to choose. There is very little price difference betweem these two ($13), so the only factor is i noise/heat.

Motherboard:
ASRock A75M-ITX - Is it possible to OC with this card?

SSD:
Samsung SSD 830 - 128 GB (I allready own this, if not I would have considered a 60GB keeping the costs down)

Memory:
2x4GB - Don't know too much about ram, so suggestions here would be nice

Case/PSU:
Antec ISK 300-65 (But heard awful things about the PSU in this case).
Also looked at the Cooler Master Elite 120 is coming out for sale soon. Can hold a GTX 690 (so if I want to rebuild the HTPC to a gamer later on, this case may be sweet

Any suggestions recommenations here?


This HTPC will mainly be used for web browsing, sab+, sickbeard, couchpotato (to server) and stream media from this server to my TV.

I want it to be as quiet as possible but doesn't need to be fanless.

What do you guys think?

 

[Aristotelian]

I'd go for the A6-3500. If it is enough to meet your requirements, go for the one that is lower power. Also it will be less stress on a questionable PSU.

Not sure why you would need to OC for HTPC use.

 

[Guest]

nice to have a spare SSD but with the size of media files a big fat "green" drive would be more appropriate and most any RAM will do.