Need Some Help/Suggestions, 1st HTPC Build

I'm want to build an HTPC, but I really don't know much about them yet. I have built several gamming PC's though, so I know my way around the build process.

I currently have a Samsung 50" plasma (PN50A650) with a Yamaha RX-V765 Receiver with Bic Acoustech PL-89 Home Theater 7.1 speaker system. & a Samsung BD-2500 blu-ray player.

I would really like to put all my DVD's & now Blu-Ray disc's on a couple of 1TB HDD's & be able to play them through an HTPC hooked directly to my receiver & then to the plasma via HDMI. I may also make this a gamming rig too so I can game on my TV if it is possible to do both.

So far I decided on a SilverStone LC17-B case, but I'm stuck on the MOBO/CPU setup. I have no idea which will be the best for an HTPC I figure the budget will be no more than $1500.00 Once I get some advice on a mobo & cpu that is HDMI compatable the rest should fall into place. I will probably use Vista Home Premium & windows media center until Windows 7 shows up & than go with that.

I spent the day doing some more research & have come up with this for a build. What do you guys think, & what would you change or add if you were building this.

Case - SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum / Steel LC10B-E ATX Media Center / HTPC Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163118

MOBO - ASUS M3N78-EM AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8300 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131354

CPU - AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition Kuma 2.8GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core Processor Model AD785ZWCGHBOX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103678

RAM - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231166

Power Supply - PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS500 500W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703015

HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

Optical - LG Black Super Multi Blu-ray Disc Burner & HD DVD-ROM Drive SATA Model GGW-H20L - Retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136137

If I decide to go with gaming abilities I will add a 4850 or one of the new models that ATI comes out with this fall.

I need to know how to get this to work with a remote though (Harmony One),
havent really looked into that yet. Though I will use a good wireless keyboard & mouse. Any suggestions or other ideas will help alot.

Anyone?

I'd honestly go with a standalone graphics card. I'm not a big fan of onboard, I went that rough, and it didn't do it for me. I could see ghosting on my 720P 32in LCD

dicecca112 said:

I'd honestly go with a standalone graphics card. I'm not a big fan of onboard, I went that rough, and it didn't do it for me. I could see ghosting on my 720P 32in LCD

Click to expand...

Right now I'm trying to figure out which would be the best board to use if I go with a dedicated graphics card & use the hybrid crossfire/SLI, & then does the HDMI jack still work or will you have to use 2 cables one off mobo, one off vid card?

I'm just getting my first HTPC build going....I have the mobo running on a cardboard box lid...but I have onboard 8200 and it seems to be fine...so far I have not tried HDMI just using the D-sub on a 720p 26" and it looks great! The thing is with HTPC you want it small so your going to go at least mATX and so that means your pretty much going to have onboard video..might as go with a decent graphics chip..and if it's not cutting the mustard then buy the stand alone graphics card later.

An idea...

I haven't done this myself, but these are two routes that I think are pretty popular, at least on this forum:

--One popular choice is the AMD 790GX chipset with the built-in ATI HD3200 or HD3300 and then get some Athlon X2 to stick in there. Some people seem to be pretty confident that even some of the lower 4000 series should work fine (like the 4050e), but when I do this later for a friend I think I'm going to use the 5000 chip.

--Another setup I've heard about is getting a motherboard with the Intel chipset and the built-in Nvidia 9400 or 9300, and then popping in some Core 2 Duo (I would think the E6300, which is labeled Pentium dual-core these days, would work fine).

I'm going to go the AMD route (I think) when I build one for my friend here soon. Then if the onboard video isn't enough, I'm going to buy an HD4550 or something. Hope this is somewhat useful.

Example said:

--One popular choice is the AMD 790GX chipset with the built-in ATI HD3200 or HD3300 and then get some Athlon X2 to stick in there. Some people seem to be pretty confident that even some of the lower 4000 series should work fine (like the 4050e), but when I do this later for a friend I think I'm going to use the 5000 chip.

Click to expand...

Yea, been doing some reading/research & so far I'm leaning toward an ASUS M4A78T-E Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131366) and an AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition Callisto 3.1GHz Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103680)

Then later on adding a seperate graphics card when ATI releases the new models this fall.