New Build HTPC

[Heckler 147]

@@Cheesegeezer

 

More news on the mediaserver front... I bit the bullet and sprung for a new case, a new PSU and a new cooler.

 

Silverstone Grandia GD08B USB3.0

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0083B6KCU/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Corsair Builder Series CXM 500W Modular

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ALK1GFC/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 2 cooler

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DQCOJUQ/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

PCI-E USB 3.0 Card with 2 rear ports and 20pin header (The motherboard only has 2 rear ports and no onboard header for USB 3.0, which I need for the front USB 3 ports on the case.)

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00HQVWFJ0/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

I've also added some decent thermal compound, and I'm toying with the idea of adding a PCI SATA card to expand the ports... I'm currently using all 6 SATA ports on the motherboard 5 drives and 1 SATA Bluray.. But with that case I'll have room for the other spare 1.5TB drive in the other system, which will take storage in the media server to over 12TB... The card is PCI because that's the only slots left on the motherboard after fitting the USB 3 card and I know it's only going to be SATA I... but that's fine, because I'm going to attach the bluray drive to it and use the SATA III hard drive on the motherboard in it's place.

 

The case and PSU arrived this afternoon... the cooler hasn't been shipped yet but everything else is on it's way... As soon as it's all here I'll be rebuilding it... Again.  

 

I'll try and do a proper build with pics this time... Might start a new thread for it though.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Heckler

[Cheesegeezer 3104]

@@Heckler

 

I've just taken the plunge and bought my bits for HTPC upgrade, I'm planning on making it a Gaming HTPC again.  I had a look at Amazon for the same parts however the Motherboard was about £20-30 dearer on Amazon so stuck with Ebuyer.

 

Anyways, I'm not gonna thread hijack as it's your but wanted to show you what I bought and tell you the reasons.  

 

Firstly I went Intel for CPU, after weighing up the TDP of AMD against Intel, The TDP for an Intel CPU is almost Half, with AMD at 125W and Intel at 65W.  

Motherboard has some pretty cool new ideas on it and is Intel XMP compatible. Here's the thing that I quite liked, quoted from ASUS website for the Mobo.

Memory upgrade I always go Low profile as you just never know with Mobo layouts and whether those pesky cooling fins get in the way of coolers etc.

 

 

 

Fan Xpert 2 Comprehensive controls for the perfect cool and quiet balance

For more fine-tuned control, hardware-level ASUS Fan Xpert 2 features Fan Auto Tuning, providing a tailored fan speed setting for each fan with exclusive automatic fan speed detection. This achieves the best balance of cooling performance and low noise. It even provides an RPM Fixed Mode for users who wish to reduce noise levels to near 0dB using a specific fan speed setting.

 

Anyways - Here's my shopping list

 

Memory

Intel i7 4770S Haswell CPU

Asus Z87-C Socket 1150 MOBO

 

I plan to add a GFX card soon for the gaming aspect but will stick with ATI cards as they seem to have HD Audio nailed down pretty good and I'm happy with the cards I've used with them.

 

Where's pics of your new build anyways? You got all your bits yets?

[Heckler 147]

Looks like that'll be a nice setup for a HTPC, I didn't go with Intel for cost reasons. For what you paid for the CPU alone, I bought motherboard, FX6300 CPU, 8GB ram and the new PSU.

 

Plus for what you paid for everything there... I was also able to get the Silverstone HTPC case, USB 3 PCI-E card, a SATA card, thermal grease and a new CPU cooler.

 

I'm not gonna get into which cpu is better type argument, because I don't think there's much difference anymore. The lower end of the intel range are running a lot cooler than AMD for certain. My FX6300 is 95w compared to the 65w you said yours will be.

 

You've got the better motherboard and twice the memory though... 16GB for a HTPC... and I thought 8GB was overkill.  

 

Overall... I think I got better value for money... but you've got the better system.  

[Cheesegeezer 3104]

Looks like that'll be a nice setup for a HTPC, I didn't go with Intel for cost reasons. For what you paid for the CPU alone, I bought motherboard, FX6300 CPU, 8GB ram and the new PSU.

 

Plus for what you paid for everything there... I was also able to get the Silverstone HTPC case, USB 3 PCI-E card, a SATA card, thermal grease and a new CPU cooler.

 

I'm not gonna get into which cpu is better type argument, because I don't think there's much difference anymore. The lower end of the intel range are running a lot cooler than AMD for certain. My FX6300 is 95w compared to the 65w you said yours will be.

 

You've got the better motherboard and twice the memory though... 16GB for a HTPC... and I thought 8GB was overkill.  

 

Overall... I think I got better value for money... but you've got the better system.  

But dont forget i already have case, psu and everything, plus this will be a Gaming HTPC, i can finally get gamebrowser up and running again

 

Memory is cheap enough TBH, and i never go for all this 2800 crap as there is very little difference for what we need it for.

 

I'm hoping this will last me another 5 yrs like my last one did. I'm contemplating an SSD too, but that can wait, have you seen they've dropped massively now. Bout 70 quid for 240Gb.

 

Next month will be GFX card

 

The good thing about building your own system is you control your budget but can tailor it for its purpose.

[Swynol 375]

nice build, have you looked at the i5 over the i7? i doubt you will see much gains with the i7 and you could save some money or put it towards a better gfx card. 

 

depending on what games you want to play and how picky you are with having all settings at ultra, the R9 270 (non x) is fairly cheap and can easily overclock it to perform the same as the x version. 

 

my gaming PC is i5 4670k on h100i water - idle is 20-23c while full load at 4.3ghz is 50c. gfx is a 7950 which i can play pretty much everything on high/ultra. the 7950 can be had for £100 second hand these days.

 

my htpc is no where near as powerful - i3 3220, Ati 6750 low profile card, but what i have been doing is using splashtop to stream 3D games to my HTPC on the big screen, so all the process power is done on my gaming machine but displayed on my HTPC. 

[Cheesegeezer 3104]

nice build, have you looked at the i5 over the i7? i doubt you will see much gains with the i7 and you could save some money or put it towards a better gfx card. 

 

depending on what games you want to play and how picky you are with having all settings at ultra, the R9 270 (non x) is fairly cheap and can easily overclock it to perform the same as the x version. 

 

my gaming PC is i5 4670k on h100i water - idle is 20-23c while full load at 4.3ghz is 50c. gfx is a 7950 which i can play pretty much everything on high/ultra. the 7950 can be had for £100 second hand these days.

 

my htpc is no where near as powerful - i3 3220, Ati 6750 low profile card, but what i have been doing is using splashtop to stream 3D games to my HTPC on the big screen, so all the process power is done on my gaming machine but displayed on my HTPC. 

 

Thanks, I've already bought the bits listed above, I did consider the i5 but wanted to go i7.  For gaming 720p is generally enough for me but 1080p would obviously be better, especially on my 55" TV.  I did think about the 7950 but thought I might as well go with the newer gen of the R9 series, I'm looking in particular at the 270 VapourX by sapphire as they have awesome cooling for a stock cooler.  I also couldn't resist buying the SSD so just purchased a 240GB for £77.

[Heckler 147]

Well I paid £36 for a 120GB SSD via the amazon warehouse deals, it had slightly damaged packaging... when it arrived, it was just a minor split in the package.

 

SSD's are still very hit and miss when it comes to the read/write speeds, I was lucky enough to get one with both around the 500-550 mark for both with 80,000IOPS... Anything less than that these days isn't worth it in my book unless massively cheaper.

 

I'm getting a little pissed off at the moment, the cooler I ordered still hasn't arrived... was ordered on the 16th. Even factoring in the easter bank holiday weekend, that's still really slow and I can't do anything about putting it all in the new case until it does... At this rate, you'll have yours built before me.  :/

[Heckler 147]

RE video cards... I'm actually thinking of ditching the 5670 I'm currently using and getting another passive one. I might even go back to the 4350 I had before... It's not noisy but the 5670 is certainly the loudest thing in the HTPC... I'm going for complete silence and that little high pitched whirrr of the vid card fan is annoying.

 

But the 4350 is only a 512mb card, so I'm looking at 1-2GB passive ones instead... Probably under the £30 mark.

[chef 3810]

 

All the parts are here, and as an added bonus... Amazon have shipped the memory twice.  

 

So I shall be installing the 16GB into the games rig and putting that 8GB into the media centre.

 

The OEM heatsink for the FX6300 is pretty pathetic, it's exactly te same as the one I fitted to a PC built for my folks 18 months ago (FX4300) and in a small case that gets really, really noisy under load.

 

So I am going to re-use my Phenom II Black Edition cooler as that's copper, has heat pipes a much quieter fan that I fitted and is rated 125w TDP... the FX6300 is only rated 95w. You can barely hear it running in the media centre even at load.

 

Just waiting for a couple of extra cables to arrive before starting the build.. probably over the weekend.  

 

 

I am using that exact same mother board. I think you will be happy.

[Cheesegeezer 3104]

Well I paid £36 for a 120GB SSD via the amazon warehouse deals, it had slightly damaged packaging... when it arrived, it was just a minor split in the package.

 

SSD's are still very hit and miss when it comes to the read/write speeds, I was lucky enough to get one with both around the 500-550 mark for both with 80,000IOPS... Anything less than that these days isn't worth it in my book unless massively cheaper.

 

I'm getting a little pissed off at the moment, the cooler I ordered still hasn't arrived... was ordered on the 16th. Even factoring in the easter bank holiday weekend, that's still really slow and I can't do anything about putting it all in the new case until it does... At this rate, you'll have yours built before me.  :/

 

Mate, I have no idea about SSD's and all this IOPS stuff, i'll be brutally honest.  I got one of these for my Office/3D Animation PC and was utterly impressed, so just bought a bigger one of the same brand.  Prob gonna use it for IBN in MB and have server and MBC running from it along with a few cheeky games

 

This is the one I got - you can tell me what you think.

 

I currently have a 6550 in my HTPC case and can't hear it.  You'd be suprised at the acoustic retention of the Silverstone cases, they are pretty awesome

 

That's shocking about your cooler, have you contacted them asking about it?

 

I'm looking forward to seeing your new case and everything in all it's glory.  

Edited April 25, 2014 by Cheesegeezer

[Heckler 147]

Speeds are good at 450 each for read/write... the read IOPS are good at 85,000... But those write IOPS are half that.

 

Providing the SSD isn't going to be used for a lot of stuff where data constantly needs to be written to the disk it'll be just fine... But I'd try to offload games onto another drive and just keep the SSD for the important stuff.

 

 

•  

   

  • Interface: SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) – with backwards compatibility to SATA Rev. 2.0
  • Sequential Reads: SATA Rev. 3.0 up to: 450MB/s
  • Sequential Writes: SATA Rev. 3.0 up to: 450MB/s
  • Maximum Random 4k Read/Write: up to 85,000/ up to 43,000 IOPS

   

[trusselo 225]

Just thought i would share my new server (still WIP)

 

• AMD Phenom II 1090T 6x core 
• Asus M5A78L-USB3
• 1932 Philco Am radio case
• 4GB HyperX Blu (going to 8 soon)
• 60 GB SSD for OS
• 2x 3TB HDDs
• 1x 2TB HDD
• 1x 1.5TB HDD
• 1x 500GB HDD

 

And the media center/minor gaming rig for my father:

 

 

Plus a MSI 7790 Twin Frozer II 1GB OC

 

 

@@Cheesegeezer should recognize this case, its the same as his, but with the flip down front.

The paint job was me.

Edited April 25, 2014 by trusselo

[Heckler 147]

Well nuts.....  Just had a call from the seller of the cooler after I put in a request for tracking details. To be fair, they got onto me by phone within about 1hr of me sending the message through Amazon.

 

According to them it was shipped via Royal Mail 48hr parcel post on the 19th... Given that it was over the Easter Weekend, they expected delivery by Weds at the very latest.  They offered to send a replacement, but can't until new stock arrives in about 7-10 days. I said I couldn't wait that long and so they're doing a refund.

 

Now I have to go and find another suitable cooler that will fit inside the Silverstone GD08B case.

 

More delays to finishing this build.  

 

Not blaming the seller either,.. they responded quickly to my email and were trying hard to resolve it... They just didn't have another suitable cooler that I was willing to accept as replacement. Needs to be a certain size to fit in the case, and the orientation of the cooler is important... Some coolers that can be fitted to cool top or rear on intel, can only be fitted to cool to the top on AMD... and because I have a HTPC case, I NEED it to cool to the rear... Which is why I chose this cooler over the rest, because it will orient to the rear as the fan can be fitted on any side of the cooler.

[Heckler 147]

@@chef  I built a mini system for my folks back in the summer of 2012 using the exact same board and an FX4300 CPU and 4GB ram. They only use it for emails, web and some TV streaming, so it's more than up for the task. Just using the onboard video for them as the case is very small and airflow is very limited... It's never crashed once using the stock cooler too.

[Heckler 147]

I'm completely tapped out at the moment, my overdraft has been supporting my rebuild and I'm going away for a week in June... I paid £37 for the cooler, so any replacement has to come in at the same or lower.

 

The Noctua cooler is around the £50-60 price range, I did look at it when I was researching.

 

Time to hit the reviews again... Idealy I'd like to get it's replacement ordered tonight.

[Cheesegeezer 3104]

Now I have to go and find another suitable cooler that will fit inside the Silverstone GD08B case.

 

Needs to be a certain size to fit in the case, and the orientation of the cooler is important... Some coolers that can be fitted to cool top or rear on intel, can only be fitted to cool to the top on AMD... and because I have a HTPC case, I NEED it to cool to the rear... Which is why I chose this cooler over the rest, because it will orient to the rear as the fan can be fitted on any side of the cooler.

 

Your not having much luck..... actually I take that back!!! You got free load of memory.... this is Karma you see lol

 

Anyways so your max cooler height is 138mm.  That's actually quite a lot of room for a HTPC case.

 

I use one of these in mine current and will use it again for the new mobo.... it's whisper quiet believe me especially if you use the ULNA adapter that comes with it.

 

Noctua NH-U9B-SE2 - Max height is 125mm and you will be able to orientate and fit 2 fan on there if you really want. 

 

I know you are concerned about noise, but the silverstone case will suprise you, with how acoustically soundproof it is, it was designed for quiet PC ops.

[Heckler 147]

Bit the bullet and ordered the Noctua NH-U9B SE2 this morning.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002SLJMQ2/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

It'll fit in the case, but the orientation is wrong, it'll exhaust to the side rather than the rear by the look of it... So some tweaking of the case fans will be needed

 

 

HOLD ON A MINUTE

 

 

I've just seen an article that says Noctua are offering free upgrade brackets NM-A90 that will allow AMD users to change the orientation of the cooler so it exits the rear as it should... and they're FREE  

 

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=nm_a90_upgrade_order

 

Now that's what I call good customer service.  I've already submitted my request for some, along with screen grabs of the order page on amazon to show I have actually purchased both the cooler and an AMD board. Just waiting for them to OK it and ship them out.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Heckler

[Cheesegeezer 3104]

Bit the bullet and ordered the Noctua NH-U9B SE2 this morning.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002SLJMQ2/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

It'll fit in the case, but the orientation is wrong, it'll exhaust to the side rather than the rear by the look of it... So some tweaking of the case fans will be needed

 

 

HOLD ON A MINUTE

 

 

I've just seen an article that says Noctua are offering free upgrade brackets NM-A90 that will allow AMD users to change the orientation of the cooler so it exits the rear as it should... and they're FREE  

 

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=nm_a90_upgrade_order

 

Now that's what I call good customer service.  I've already submitted my request for some, along with screen grabs of the order page on amazon to show I have actually purchased both the cooler and an AMD board. Just waiting for them to OK it and ship them out.

Quality mate, i didnt want to say anything but i'm glad you ordered it. For someone as obsessed as you for noise, i'm surprised this wasnt first on your list.

 

You wont be disappointed. Just make sure you use the ULNA power adapters for both your fans.

 

Taking shape now fella. Your new rig should last you a few years

[Heckler 147]

Well I found it for £42.95 inc free shipping @@Cheesegeezer which was only £5 more than the one I'd order before.

 

Turns out I may have dodged a bullet too... I did so much research into coolers to make sure I got the right one to fit in the case... and now I'm rechecking the Be Quiet Shadow Rock 2 and it's showing as 160mm tall... Which isn't what it was saying when I ordered on the 16th.

 

So I think they had the wrong dimensions on the page and it's now been adjusted... So it going missing in the post could be rather fortuitous after all.  

[Luke 42077]

Well done

[Cheesegeezer 3104]

Well I found it for £42.95 inc free shipping @@Cheesegeezer which was only £5 more than the one I'd order before.

 

Turns out I may have dodged a bullet too... I did so much research into coolers to make sure I got the right one to fit in the case... and now I'm rechecking the Be Quiet Shadow Rock 2 and it's showing as 160mm tall... Which isn't what it was saying when I ordered on the 16th.

 

So I think they had the wrong dimensions on the page and it's now been adjusted... So it going missing in the post could be rather fortuitous after all.  

Haha, maybe it wasnt Karma!! You're just a jammy bar steward!! Lol

 

My gear shipped yesterday, so just waiting to get back from Baku and i'll be able to play

[Heckler 147]

Given that over the last 6 years I've lost a brother, 3 aunts, 2 uncles, a cousin and 2 friends... I think I'm entitled to a bit of luck, as is the rest of the family.

 

Why that hasn't taken the form of a massive lottery win... I'm not sure yet.  

 

 

 

Soz... feeling a little meloncholy this evening, was discussing with the folks about taking them to the funeral for my cousin on the 7th and it's making me feel a little down.

 

So to move swiftly on... Did I mention that I got 8GB OF FREE RAM   

Edited April 26, 2014 by Heckler

[Cheesegeezer 3104]

Chin up It does get better mate...... believe me, I've lost all my family including both my parents by the age of 22. The futures not looking too bright for me hahahaha, i'll be lucky if I make it to 40.

 

Oh and by the way..... when did you get your free RAM, i think you failed to mention that  

 

Take it easy fella and enjoy your evening with your folks

[Heckler 147]

I was sure I mentioned the free ram earlier in the thread... Amazon shipped it twice a few weeks back when I first did the rebuild.  

 

Sorry about the family mate... I lost my older brother when he was 40, and there was a part of me that didn't think I'd make it that far... I just squeaked it though... so now I don't think I'll make it to 50   

 

 

Just took some piccies of the new case... it's lovely, and a lot lighter than I expected. But very disappointed that there are no 3 pin to molex adapters with the case at all... and it's got 3x fan with each one being a 3 pin, and my motherboard only has a single extra 3 pin connector.  I think I might get a splitter for the two intakes at the bottom of the case and add a resistor to slow them down.

 

The case is MAHOOSIVE... there's room for upto 10 hard drives in total if you don't have a long vid card. 8 in the normal drive bays and then there are 2 SSD spaces that sit above the optical bays. So there's soooooo much room for expansion in the future. I'll need a bigger motherboard with a lot more SATA ports and room for a PCI-E SATA expansion card.

 

I also ran into a niggle  with the PSU, it's only got 5 SATA connectors and it's supposed to have 6... So need to chase that up with Amazon and see if they can send me the correct modular cable... I have one with 3 sata connectors and one with only 2... then there's the cable with 4 molex and the one with a couple of 8pin (6+2) graphics connectors. I've got some splitters/adapters to turn molex into SATA... but that means having cables flapping around inside the case for the molex ones I don't use. Was hoping to avoid that with a modular PSU.

[Heckler 147]

Some pics of the new PSU and case...