Want to make a steambox for living room

Hey guys. Its been a while since I've thought about building a new rig. After having a child and working 70+ hours a week I realized I enjoyed gaming in the living room with my family more than in my man room away from them. However I have a ps3 and 360 and wii u, but I would rather be playing the much less expensive, better quality version on the pc. With steam big picture, I now see that as a possibility. Here is what I want:

Price: ~$300 (CHEAPER THE BETTER. If it's 10% better for $50 I want to pass)

Performance: High Settings on most games @ 1080p with 30 to 60fps

Size: UPDATE (A Normal Size ATX case will be fine. Just going to lay on its side under my 360)

Sound/Useability: I NEED 5.1 surround sound through my Denon receiver over hdmi along with the 1080p video

Optical Drive: Not needed (will borrow one I have laying around to install windows 7)

Power Supply: As cheap as possible, hopefully comes in the case

Storage: Cheap. Don't need SSD. I like fast, but I like size much more

This might not be possible. But it would be sweet if it was.

With steambox o/s and mantle coming out soon, you may be able to get away with a higher end apu. With steambox o/s, you won't have to buy windows, which will save you a little $$. Get an itx form factor case and board so that it will be small.

xsuperbgx said:

With steambox o/s and mantle coming out soon, you may be able to get away with a higher end apu. With steambox o/s, you won't have to buy windows, which will save you a little $$. Get an itx form factor case and board so that it will be small.

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the problem I have with itx is finding an affordable/powerful graphics card. I Might consider an APU, but would that have the same bang for the buck as a dedicated gpu/cpu?

The newer ones are good compared to past integrated video.

After reviewing what I have read elsewhere, it may take the new kaveri apu's to support mantle and be decent on 1080P.

There are some itx that have pciex16 slots on them. You almost have to choose your case first. Decide if you have to have itx to get the size that you want, then get the hardware needed to suit your gaming needs. There will have to be a balance of power, size, and silence with an htpc. Often you don't have to worry about that as much when building a normal desktop / gaming pc.

Can't see a signature if you have one (mobile). But a benefit to steam os will be to stream gameplay from your gaming PC to another on the same network. If that is the case if you have a powerful enough main PC you may only need something very basic.

Janus67 said:

Can't see a signature if you have one (mobile). But a benefit to steam os will be to stream gameplay from your gaming PC to another on the same network. If that is the case if you have a powerful enough main PC you may only need something very basic.

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Wow. I didn't know you could do that! I am running an i5 with a gtx 480. Not the greatest rig, but decent enough