It's a good review of a case, but it's a bit misleading to title page 5 "Making an HTPC". Making a good HTPC involves a lot more than slapping some good componenents inside a spiffy HTPC case. Readers interested in "Making an HTPC" would benefit from a discussion of video capture cards, cpu cooling fans, hard drives (cooler and quieter, and discrete pvr drives that are seperate from the OS hd), video cards (passive cooling!) and even pvr software, such as Windows Media Center, BeyondTV, Myth TV, or others.

Maybe I didn't read carefully enough, but I didn't see what the street price of this case is. Also, are there competitive alternatives worth considering?

I'm not here to shoot this article down, but I was hoping to see some of these issues addressed after reading 7 pages.



Th

For anyone building an HTPC with this case, they would probably want cooler, larger HDDs. The GP series from WD would be better for that.

The CPU and GPU are probably overkill unless the person using this is an avid gamer.

You did not say much about the touchscreen and how it works with Vista's built-in Media Center software. You stated that the instructions say to set it up as the secondary display in an extended configuration. Does the touchscreen echo the information in Vista's MC? Or did you use iMedian?

I actually used Vista MC, iMedian and the HDMedian also. They all have their benefits and weaknesses. When connected to the big TV, I used Vista MC, it worked better for me with the remote, when connected to a local LCD the others worked better as they really like the use of the touch screen. Going back and forth was easy with the software, sorry I did not put more on that in the article but I wanted to keep it more about the case than software because that can be tweaked and changed. I can say when connected to my big TV, I really like the little LCD show one thing and maybe have something else on the TV. Kind of like Picture in a picture.

As far as more on HTPC, check out Tom's other articles as there are several and this was just about this case. You can compare them there, same for the software as there are articles on that too. As for the cost of this case, they usually use the search engine to provide that but just google it and you will find prices running about $699. http://www.google.com/products?q=s [...] UTF-8&um=1

I've been building MicroATX HTPC's, and find them just as quiet and operational, and a lot cheaper, even with adding a screen (and why would I even want that, as I've got a 56" 1080p HDTV?!)

I have an Ahanix mce701 (not sure if they make them anymore) for my htpc. Very similar to the Silverstone, but not the same high level of quality. At less than half the price, I am extremely satisfied with the Ahanix. The touchscreen is wonderful for doing everything that the television isn't needed for, such as selecting and playing music, catching the latest weather forecast, or simply looping a slideshow of the kids while it's idle. The screen also adds a certain geek-cool touch to my entertainment center. I keep my components at eye-level, but if it were stacked below the tv, I could see the benefits of the little touchscreen greatly diminished.

What CPU cooler did you use?

While this article is fine for reveiwing the case itself, it really falls short on the build aspect. Tom's Hardware is far too long overdue for an updated HD HTPC build. It seems like they are focused just on gaming. With DVD recorders with built in HDD's pretty much banned in the U.S., HTPC's are really becoming popular.

I have a Coolermaster CM Media 282, you can use 4 120mm fans in this case. Its not the most stylish, but with Noctua 120mm fans it is exceptionally silent (due to the position of the fans I run passive cooling on an EVGA 8600 gt GPU, & AM2 5200 CPU). Plus I built this system for probably the cost of the silverstone case... Not a power house system, it is only a PVR.

boysdaddy: I used the stock cooler on the Q6600. I thought it was very quiet even under load and was impressed with it. It is not a highend cooler but I did not have time to do much more.

niknik, I was going to do a Blu-Ray drive with some results of it but the Pioneer blu-ray software did not work, it said not a supported pioneer system and then the replacement did the same. I am investigating it further before I say any more but I think an HD HTPC system is a good idea.

I build a PVR on the KPC system like I reviewed, it works great, is quiet and I spent less than $400 on it

For $700 there should be no flaws. Ridiculous.

I wonder if anyone heard of this HDD model:

"Seagate WD5000AAKS"

Looks like a typo error here.
Located here: Page 5 - Making an HTPC, Table 1: System Components

Should have been Western Digital not Seagate

Just a short note, you stated you used a Seagate harddrive with partnumber WD5000AAKS. Of course, this is not a Seagate drive but a Western Digital Caviar SE16.

yes it was a Western Digital hard drive and I used a standard 7200 RPM HDD becuase eventually I want to do mirroring of this system and the GP drives do not work for any RAID duties. WD even says this and I would assume that this is due to the variable speed causing the data to get out of sync. This is supported by reports from users who have tried to use the GP drives in RAID configurations. I would recommend a large GP drive if you want to save energy and perhaps soon Toms will do a test of the energy saving in the motherboard and HDD that claim energy savings

Bill, you might be interested in the WD7500AYPS at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Pro [...] iveID=384. It has RAID-specific TLER and is part of the GP family. I'd love to see where they say not to use it in RAID arrays, because I was about to buy two for that purpose.

The RE2 version of the drives do support RAID with TLER and RAFF but the AACS and EACS models do not support these features. Sorry again for the miss information.

Thanks for the clarif.

I bet a good portion of the cost is in that LCD screen. All and all that's a pretty sweet case. I too would be curious on a HD HTPC build, maybe even a couple of different affordability levels.

For anyone interested I installed a Blu-Ray drive to watch Blu-Ray movies, the small LCD would play the movies without any problem but I ran into trouble with the Pioneer software it does not support being installed on the secondary SATA controller from Gigabyte. Then I learned that my about a year old Sony LCD TV is not HDCP enable so I can not watch the Blu-Ray movies on my 42" TV which really sucks. So the moral to this story is make sure your TV will support PC Blu-Ray before you build a HTPC like this or you might be wishing you did not waste the money on a Blu-Ray drive.

Forgot to say my TV is KDF-E42A10 and it plays DVD great, same with TV or recorded TV just not Blu-Ray movies. I have contacted Sony but no answer on how to fix it.