NEW multi purpose HTPC build - feedback wanted

[stkshooter]

Hey, this is my first post so I would like to say hello everyone and ask for a little feedback on my first build. Wish I would have found this forum sooner.

I am replacing a 8 yr. old ASUS /AMD PC running win. 7 ultimate that works fine but is lagging behind and can't be upgraded any more. I decided to build a family HTPC Win. 7 Ultimate/ Media Center type set up that would be used for everything except heavy gaming and drop my cable T.V. for internet, etc. Not saying it would never be used for gaming but playstation/xbox etc. keeps the kid busy in his room. So I'm not interested in building a full out power house gamer for T.V. / internet. I plan to use Hulu and other streaming services along with mulitiple software together so I may be running many programs at once but nothing more graphic intensive than HDTV movies.

I was concerned about building a system that uses more elec. than needed but also didn't want to have the delay issues as my old PC. Guess you have to find that balance and hope it's right. MSI boards had some good reviews and offered all the new tech I wanted for less. Some might say G or Asus is better and maybe next time I'll try G but this time I went with MSI. Based on that board showing up in some of the HTPC reviews. I prob. could have went with other boards and added graphics card but figured I didn't need it for HDTV and on board would do the job. I paid $119 for the board from Tiger and then see New Egg reduced their price from $129 to $109 a few days later but I already installed the components. Oh well! New Egg will be getting more of my buss. I'm looking for feed back from people who have used a PC like this, wondering if you see any thing I should have done diff.

750W PSU might be more than I needed but I can grow into it. AMD 955 might be overkill too but my current CPU is always at 100% so I wanted to make sure that's not a problem for awhile and if I"m running Vuze, HDTV DVR etc. all at the same time I might need the Quad. I'm not planning on OC so went with 4 GB/ 1333 memory in CL7 and can always add more if needed. I can always add more storage HDD. I have $727.93 in PC parts inside case with case. Any ideas on what I could have done diff. ? Thanks and sorry for such a long post...



Cooler Master Centurion 534 Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB and Audio 120mm fan $39.99

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply $109.99

MSI 890GXM-G65 Motherboard - AMD 890GX, Socket AM3, ATX, DDR3, RAID, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0 $119.99

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model KHX1333C7D3K2/4G CL 7 $137.99

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor $159.99

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $109.99

Seagate 7200.12 ST3750528AS Barracuda Hard Drive - 750GB, 7200rpm, 32MB, Serial ATA-300 $49.99

DVD lightscribe (already owned )

Total Price $727.93

Win. 7 Ultimate 64 bit OS

Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 226bw

Logitech 5.1 speakers

Buying 46" HDTV next if you have any suggestions ?

 

[stkshooter]

A few days have passed with no replies. Must have done a good job. thanks for all your feedback...

 

[kmote]

Well it's only two days, which in the grand scheme of things isn't very long. But the main reason I'm guessing you got no replies so far is the length of the post (which you acknowledge). Anyway, the build looks OK with a few minor things that I would change:
1) the centurion 534, while fairly good, is an old design and a little on the large side for an HTPC IMO.
2) 750W is overkill by a long shot. 350W or even less would do the job nicely.
3) the 955 is very powerful, it's up to you but I would go cheaper.
4) To keep the noise down, I would use a single, smaller HDD and store most of my media remotely - but this depends on your setup, if you can't store remotely then you might well need the space locally.

 

[stkshooter]

kmote, thanks for the feedback.

your right about the case being a little large for a HTPC but that's not all I use the unit for and next to all the other black components stacked up it doesn't appear out of place. Just bought http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/televisions/led/product.asp?model=46sv670u so the case doesn't look so big.

I read you should double your psu needs so I figured my needs would be around 400w if I ever add a graphics card later on and 750w gives me room to add on since the price diff. wasn't that much.

your right about pcu being overkill, I prob could have went smaller but my old PC cpu was always at 100% and I swore this was not going to happen this time around. guess I over compensated huh Win 7 system rating shows cpu at 7.3 and everything else at 4.6 to 6. (wonder how much a graphics card would change my graphics rating ? graphics 4.6 and gaming graphics 5.6 / memory 5.9 ) must take one heck of a machine to hit top numbers.

I considered noise and went with larger 120mm fans. Actually I can't hear any noise unless I put my ear beside vents. DVD spinning up was the only thing I really hear.

This was my first build and wanted to make sure I didn't underbuild or build myself into a corner if I wanted to upgrade /add on in future.

thanks

Well it's only two days, which in the grand scheme of things isn't very long. But the main reason I'm guessing you got no replies so far is the length of the post (which you acknowledge). Anyway, the build looks OK with a few minor things that I would change:
1) the centurion 534, while fairly good, is an old design and a little on the large side for an HTPC IMO.
2) 750W is overkill by a long shot. 350W or even less would do the job nicely.
3) the 955 is very powerful, it's up to you but I would go cheaper.
4) To keep the noise down, I would use a single, smaller HDD and store most of my media remotely - but this depends on your setup, if you can't store remotely then you might well need the space locally.

 

[kmote]

There are in order of increasing severity: lies, darn lies, statistics, and computer benchmarks. - diskinfo man page

You can safely ignore the windows rating.

I stand by my comments but the most important thing is that you're happy with it and that it does the job. I'm a firm believer that cost is immaterial in the long run.