Best Upgrade for HTPC

[daviejoe]

Hi all, I've used the forum a lot to figure out what to do next, but I am at a crossroad now, and would love some advice.

I currently have a home built HTPC, which is starting to show it's age (and constantly run to loudly). I was hoping you all could recommend a good upgrade, trying to salvage whichever of these parts I have to save money. I know that many of it is yesteryear's components, but all I use this PC for is watching movies/streaming video.

My main problem with my current build is noise. The fans run high all the time, while my components still seem to be hot (IE: GPU @ 51 degrees, CPU at 45).

Case: APEVIA Black / Silver SECC Steel / Aluminum X-MASTER-AL/500 ATX Media Center / HTPC Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144230)

Mobo: ASRock A770DE+ AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157226 )

CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 940

Graphics: MSI R4550-MD1GH Radeon HD 4550 1GB 64-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Low
Profile Ready Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127458)

Memory: Wintec AMPX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161183)


Any advice would be helpful. What would your next upgrade of this be?

 

[lchrisk]

You don't need to upgrade your cpu, as it's still great. Maybe you could replace some fans, which you said were loud.

If I were you, I would upgrade the graphics card. A cheap 6670 will be okay, or a 650 or 7770.