Can someone help me with a Gaming HTPC?

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chibilaharl

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OK so heres the deal, Im building a computer for the first time in over 10 years. I want to build HTPC capable of playing Skyrim fairly well and Ive been doing some research and i think i have settled on some parts i like, but was wondering if some PC-savy Cag's could take a look at my list and maybe point out any flaws or give recommendations on getting the most bang for my buck. So without further ado, here is the list.

Housing: Cooler Master 120
MOBO:Gigabyte GA-H61N-usb3
CPU: havent decided yet but im thinking an i-5 dual core maybe.
PS: Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500w Power Supply
GPU: AMD Radeon 6450
HDD: IM thinking a TB SATA drive, but im still shopping

Ive picked out a fan that works as well.


Any suggestions?
 
[quote name='chibilaharl']OK so heres the deal, Im building a computer for the first time in over 10 years. I want to build HTPC capable of playing Skyrim fairly well and Ive been doing some research and i think i have settled on some parts i like, but was wondering if some PC-savy Cag's could take a look at my list and maybe point out any flaws or give recommendations on getting the most bang for my buck. So without further ado, here is the list.

Housing: Cooler Master 120
MOBO:Gigabyte GA-H61N-usb3
CPU: havent decided yet but im thinking an i-5 dual core maybe.
PS: Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500w Power Supply
GPU: AMD Radeon 6450
HDD: IM thinking a TB SATA drive, but im still shopping

Ive picked out a fan that works as well.


Any suggestions?[/QUOTE]

In the long run, I'd go with the reliability of an Solid State drive (rather than sata). Yes in the market it is quite expensive, but it is worth the bang for your buck
 
thanks for the suggestion kenred. I definitely wanted a SSD, but they are so expensive at the moment, i fighted if anything i can go back and change it out later
 
I built a gaming HTPC in 2007... take my advice and just dont. You wont be able to put any appreciable size graphic card inside your system so forget about putting any GPU above $200 inside your case because it is VERY unlikely to fit.

Also it makes cooling much harder. In summer time i had to leave the top off my case and have a fan blowing on it because the GPU was generating too much heat for the fans in the case to dissipate.

Do yourself a favor and just build a traditional tower. It will save you time money and headache. Dont build an htpc for gaming... its not there yet and may never be.

edit: just looked at your GPU and never mind... thats not a very good card and I wouldn't expect much out of skyrim from it. Get this instead. Also dont know what the budget entails but I agree with the other guy, go with an SSD for your drive. You should be able to find a 256GB for just a bit under $200 but its going to create less heat and be a lot faster.
 
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[quote name='retrad']I built a gaming HTPC in 2007... take my advice and just dont. You wont be able to put any appreciable size graphic card inside your system so forget about putting any GPU above $200 inside your case because it is VERY unlikely to fit.[/QUOTE]

Just because it's a HTPC doesn't mean it needs any special type of casing. All of the HTPC's I've built people have been just older desktops that they didn't want/need anymore, using stock cases or another generic equivalent.

A standard mini tower which houses full sized GPUs won't look anymore out of place than a audio receiver, or any other (slightly/barely smaller) device you have on your shelf like the DVR.

I build gaming HTPCs the same way I build regular gaming units. The only difference is in adjusting the software to make it viewable on a bigger TV.

To go along with what he said though, that's a weak video card. You'd put that in a regular HTPC for video playback and light Facebook gaming. It will run some newer games on the lowest settings and like 10-20 FPS. You need something considerably more powerful. If the budget is being stretched, nix the SSD that people suggested and put it into a better GPU. SSD is nice but not a priority for gaming.
 
What kind of budget are you working with? SSD prices are very reasonable right now. You can get a 120GB for around $70. Couple that with a hard drive and you'll be good to go. Also, you'll need to look at spending more on your GPU. The 6450 will work well for a HTPC, but not for gaming. Newegg had a deal for a EVGA 560Ti Refurb for $160. That would be my recommendation. If you have a MicroCenter near you, they're selling the i5-2500k for $100. That is a very hot deal and I wouldn't hesitate on it. I prefer the 2500k over the newer i5, for it's overclocking ability.
 
Thanks for everyones advice. Maybe i will switch to a regular tower. They can be built for cheaper correct. The budget for me is really low. infact this project will probably take over a year to complete as i plan to buy it piece by piece over the year. They have towercases that are designed to me horizontal?
 
Also, Can you build a tower to have a quick boot? my firends HTPC loads in a few seconds where my laptop takes like 3 minutes.
 
MY purpose with this pc is to have HTPC settings that my wife can easily boot up and use , but then i can access hardcore gaming with it as well. is that do-able?
 
also at the risk of over posting in my own thread. the case ive selected says it supports even long video card support. Could i build a regular gaming pc in this case?
 
[quote name='chibilaharl']Thanks for everyones advice. Maybe i will switch to a regular tower. They can be built for cheaper correct. The budget for me is really low. infact this project will probably take over a year to complete as i plan to buy it piece by piece over the year. They have towercases that are designed to me horizontal?[/QUOTE]

dont buy the pieces one by one there is no point as prices always come down. Just save your money and buy it all at once, unless you are really really bad at saving money.
 
You seem unrealistic in what you want vs what you have. Also, without a price point it makes it really hard to gauge what you can/cannot get.

You can get a reasonably quick boot in Windows by using sleep mode. I just assign me power button and start menu button to be sleep instead of restart. Even on mechanical HDs it's rather fast. Your laptop probably takes so long because there's a bunch of BS running at startup and/or it's a Windows XP machine.

Assuming your wife knows the basic functions of a computer it should be fine for her. It's no different than using a regular PC.
 
And pretty much any case can be laid down sideways. CD/DVD/BR drives are also made so that they can operate sideways too. (cheaper cases will not be able to house heavy things on top of them without bending inwards but I doubt that's going to be an issue, usually only one w/ regular setups and a heavy monitor on top of it)
 
Have you checked out Alienware's X51 line? I don't know your budget, but they start out pretty cheap, and they can definitely handle light gaming.
 
[quote name='kenred2']In the long run, I'd go with the reliability of an Solid State drive (rather than sata). Yes in the market it is quite expensive, but it is worth the bang for your buck[/QUOTE]
You do realize that SSD's are SATA right... And honestly, depending on how a person uses their SSD and the quality of the NAND chips, they do have a shelf life due to the write amplification phenomenon. It's not like normal mechanical HDD die left and right these days; just have to trade off space for performance.

I too would suggest getting a cheap 60-128GB SSD as just the OS MBR then pair it with Seagate Barracuda 3TB drive for storage. It's $130 at NCIX.com right now.


[quote name='retrad']I built a gaming HTPC in 2007... take my advice and just dont. You wont be able to put any appreciable size graphic card inside your system so forget about putting any GPU above $200 inside your case because it is VERY unlikely to fit.

Also it makes cooling much harder. In summer time i had to leave the top off my case and have a fan blowing on it because the GPU was generating too much heat for the fans in the case to dissipate.

Do yourself a favor and just build a traditional tower. It will save you time money and headache. Dont build an htpc for gaming... its not there yet and may never be.

edit: just looked at your GPU and never mind... thats not a very good card and I wouldn't expect much out of skyrim from it. Get this instead. Also dont know what the budget entails but I agree with the other guy, go with an SSD for your drive. You should be able to find a 256GB for just a bit under $200 but its going to create less heat and be a lot faster.[/QUOTE]

This is 2012... 5 years makes a huge difference in what is technologically avaliable now days so the products are hugely different; it also doesn't hurt that HTPC has really gone main stream just in the last few years with the advent of more streaming services like hulu.

CPU's and GPU's have both gotten very power sipping; monstrous still? yes, but you can get an ITX box that will support a GTX 690 if you are willing to pay the price. It's only 11" long and its TDP is 300w. The Cooler Master Elite 120 that OP picked will house the 690 with no issues. The ITX BitFenix Prodigy case supports 12.5" cards; even has space for water cooling for not that much larger than the CM case.

I do agree, if you don't need to build an ITX PC, save yourself some premium money and do a normal ATX or micro-ATX build. ITX Motherboards tend to be $50+ more for the same features you find on entry level $50 mobo's; plus it really limits your expansion capabilities.

[quote name='chibilaharl']Thanks for everyones advice. Maybe i will switch to a regular tower. They can be built for cheaper correct. The budget for me is really low. infact this project will probably take over a year to complete as i plan to buy it piece by piece over the year. They have towercases that are designed to me horizontal?[/QUOTE]
[quote name='retrad']dont buy the pieces one by one there is no point as prices always come down. Just save your money and buy it all at once, unless you are really really bad at saving money.[/QUOTE]
If you can't buy and build within a few months; keeping the CPU, mobo and GPU last, then don't bother buying anything now until you have the cash. The only things I'd keep a keen eye for deals would be stuff that won't change in price that much from now and when you actually will finish with the build. Such as Power Supply, Case, Fans and a few other small bits.

A year? Shoot. Best wait a year for CPU, mobo, GPU, RAM, SSD, and HDD since prices should be way cheaper or you'll find better value then... unless another flood hits or the world actually ends this year. Either way, you'll be wasting money if you buy stuff now. Best wait till Black Friday 2013.


BTW, you have to be a complete idiot to pay $60 for a 6450 GPU... Its not much faster than Intel's HD graphics built into the CPU's (actually slower than the HD 4000 in newer i5/i7 ivy bridge chips). Even then, I got my 6450 card for $10 AR for my much much older pc that I turned into a simple HTPC; its 6+ years old now but still a dual core and works fine for 1080p video duties.
 
[quote name='JBaz']
This is 2012... 5 years makes a huge difference in what is technologically avaliable now days so the products are hugely different; it also doesn't hurt that HTPC has really gone main stream just in the last few years with the advent of more streaming services like hulu.
[/QUOTE]

you dont know what you are talking about, nothing has changed in that time, unless you are watercooling your shit your videocard is going to cause your CPU to overheat because AIR cooling cannot dissipate that much heat in that small of a case. Yeah if you throw a sub $75 dollar card in there no problem but when you throw a $300 card in there and its summer time you are going to overheat period without watercooling and watercooling in a HTPC IS LO SHAQ-FU-ING L
I only read gaming HTPC in the title thread when I wrote my post, the only part I added in that post after I read the topic was the edit: portion of my post. The POS card he was talking about doesn't make this a gaming HTPC and I stand by my original statement whether its 2007, 2012 or 2022.
 
[quote name='retrad']you dont know what you are talking about, nothing has changed in that time, unless you are watercooling your shit your videocard is going to cause your CPU to overheat because AIR cooling cannot dissipate that much heat in that small of a case. Yeah if you throw a sub $75 dollar card in there no problem but when you throw a $300 card in there and its summer time you are going to overheat period without watercooling and watercooling in a HTPC IS LO SHAQ-FU-ING L
I only read gaming HTPC in the title thread when I wrote my post, the only part I added in that post after I read the topic was the edit: portion of my post. The POS card he was talking about doesn't make this a gaming HTPC and I stand by my original statement whether its 2007, 2012 or 2022.[/QUOTE]
I do know what I'm talking about. Apparently you don't. You are assuming a lot from you past experience that's 5 years out of date.

A mid range gaming card, like the 660ti for 300ish, is only 150w tdp and it runs very very cool. Most gpu's now days use a blower type cooler that will expel heat from the system out the back even though blowers tend to be a bit louder and less efficient than a normal fan (of which most designs would still spread heat around the case more than a blower). In any regard, most modern HTPC small format cases will have slots/slits of where the GPU would be, allowing for better airflow for it.

As for the CPU, they too have gotten way way more efficient in the last 5 years. Granted, you are not going to be dropping a 130w hexacore chip into something this small and expect it to work, but even the new ivy bridge quad cores only use 77w tdp and that's using the gpu core. If I was doing this now, I'd go with a low wattage cpu anyhow like the i3 3240T or the i5 3570T. And overclocking would be out of the question unless your HTPC is large enough to house a simple all-in-one water cooler like the corsair H60, but let say no. If you are worried about cpu cooling, then you still can get a flat and thin aftermarket cpu cooler that's only 40 to 60mm high to fit in a HTPC case.

And honestly, it really depends on where you live as well and how comfortable you like to live in your digs. If you live in a place like Hawaii, in an open house with no AC... then yah, heat & humidity would be a huge issue, but if you live in apartment that's always set at 72 all year round, then its not going to make a damn difference.
 
[quote name='JBaz']I do know what I'm talking about. Apparently you don't. You are assuming a lot from you past experience that's 5 years out of date.

A mid range gaming card, like the 660ti for 300ish, is only 150w tdp and it runs very very cool. Most gpu's now days use a blower type cooler that will expel heat from the system out the back even though blowers tend to be a bit louder and less efficient than a normal fan (of which most designs would still spread heat around the case more than a blower). In any regard, most modern HTPC small format cases will have slots/slits of where the GPU would be, allowing for better airflow for it.

As for the CPU, they too have gotten way way more efficient in the last 5 years. Granted, you are not going to be dropping a 130w hexacore chip into something this small and expect it to work, but even the new ivy bridge quad cores only use 77w tdp and that's using the gpu core. If I was doing this now, I'd go with a low wattage cpu anyhow like the i3 3240T or the i5 3570T. And overclocking would be out of the question unless your HTPC is large enough to house a simple all-in-one water cooler like the corsair H60, but let say no. If you are worried about cpu cooling, then you still can get a flat and thin aftermarket cpu cooler that's only 40 to 60mm high to fit in a HTPC case.

And honestly, it really depends on where you live as well and how comfortable you like to live in your digs. If you live in a place like Hawaii, in an open house with no AC... then yah, heat & humidity would be a huge issue, but if you live in apartment that's always set at 72 all year round, then its not going to make a damn difference.[/QUOTE]

Load 67 degrees celsius on that GPU... and apparently you have no experience with HTPC's and I do because here I am saying you are a fucking noob. Load 67 degrees celsius on the htpc that I had. Now that is apples to apples homie. Now I live in California and yes if you run your air conditioning to 40 degrees F, you wont overheat and shutdown. However I had an antec fusion case which is way better than whatever this dude is buying and I can tell you if you dont air condition while gaming your shit is going to overheat and shutdown. I even had a cooler running cpu than the I5 proc that the op is talking about.

Now lets look at the benchmarks again... thats 67 degrees at load in a nice big open case with a good cooling system... throw that same card in an htpc and its going to run even hotter because the airflow just is not there in an HTPC... unless you think fans have revolutionized in the last 5 years you are wrong.

I dont even need to argue with you anymore because you are an obvious idiot who doesn't have any HTPC experience... I got a ridiculous pc now in a full tower case and would never ever go back to an HTPC for gaming again. It doesn't work period end of discussion no one with a brain is doing it.
 
[quote name='retrad']
Load 67 degrees celsius on that GPU... and apparently you have no experience with HTPC's and I do because here I am saying you are a fucking noob. Load 67 degrees celsius on the htpc that I had. Now that is apples to apples homie. Now I live in California and yes if you run your air conditioning to 40 degrees F, you wont overheat and shutdown. However I had an antec fusion case which is way better than whatever this dude is buying and I can tell you if you dont air condition while gaming your shit is going to overheat and shutdown. I even had a cooler running cpu than the I5 proc that the op is talking about.

Now lets look at the benchmarks again... thats 67 degrees at load in a nice big open case with a good cooling system... throw that same card in an htpc and its going to run even hotter because the airflow just is not there in an HTPC... unless you think fans have revolutionized in the last 5 years you are wrong.

I dont even need to argue with you anymore because you are an obvious idiot who doesn't have any HTPC experience... I got a ridiculous pc now in a full tower case and would never ever go back to an HTPC for gaming again. It doesn't work period end of discussion no one with a brain is doing it.[/QUOTE]
You mad bro? lolz

1) 67C on load with stock air cooling for a card like this is very cold.
2) Thermal limit of the 660 Ti, 98C; Thermal limit of your 6850, 100C.
3) Air vents on the side of the HTPC case for the GPU fan is located where the fan or blower will be, so it will take in cool air directly outside of the case and expel out the back of the card.
4) You have a very good AC unit if you can get your room down to 40F; which happens to be the recommended temperature to keep food safe in a refrigerator...

Please step off of your HTPC high horse.


I've ran three 570's stacked on top of each other with stock air cooling and saw temps as high as 95C when folding during the hot months last year; no stability issues ever. I use one 570 in my current HTPC and have since then water cooled my remaining two 570's in my current gaming rig.
 
no i dont run my ac that cool I was making fun of you... if you have to run your AC to keep your computer cool you are doing it wrong.

the end.
 
[quote name='retrad']no i dont run my ac that cool I was making fun of you... if you have to run your AC to keep your computer cool you are doing it wrong.

the end.[/QUOTE]
Doing a terrible job at it. I suppose all the data centers are doing it wrong when they build their buildings around the AC system to cool their computers...

Computer heats up room, AC removes heat from room, there in logical fallacy suggests AC cools computer in any scenario that has a room with a PC and a running AC. On full cpu/gpu load with triple SLI, my system pulls about 940w from the wall; not including the four other computers and 4 monitors in the room.


Just because you had this one bad experience with your failures, doesn't mean the whole idea is bad for everyone else. If this was so, then nothing would have been accomplished in human history because of a bad try. Shit it took Edison 2000 tries to make a light bulb, if he tried it the first time and followed your tone, he would have given up and we'd be left in the dark; twitting our thumbs in candle light from wax or whale oil.
 
[quote name='jkam']Why not get a case geared towards what you are looking to do?

The SG07 support graphics cards up to 12.2 inches and 400W.

http://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-M...1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354131639&sr=8-1&keywords=sg07

Small case and can take a big card. Has built in cooling and power supply.[/QUOTE]
You do realize that the much much cheaper CM Elite 120 can house a 13.5 inch video card and any standard sized ATX power supply, just like the $200 expensive SilverStone case. Pretty sure if someone tends to look at a $50 case that fits their budget and needs, they aren't going find a product that's 3 or 4 times more expensive that does the same basic needs with very little added value. It might be a better case, but is it a better case for $150 more is the real question.
 
[quote name='JBaz']You do realize that the much much cheaper CM Elite 120 can house a 13.5 inch video card and any standard sized ATX power supply, just like the $200 expensive SilverStone case. Pretty sure if someone tends to look at a $50 case that fits their budget and needs, they aren't going find a product that's 3 or 4 times more expensive that does the same basic needs with very little added value. It might be a better case, but is it a better case for $150 more is the real question.[/QUOTE]

oops, never even looked at the case in the OP...my bad. However it does seem like the SG07 handles heat better and includes a power supply. It's still probably a good $100 difference with that in mind. Not sure it's worth the extra amount, but might save a headache or two. I'm actually still upset I got talked out of going with a small case like this. I did a mini-atx build 2 years ago and wish I went itx.
 
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In a small form factor case like this, you really don't need a 600w power supply. The corsair 430w 80+ bronze (which frequently goes on sale for $20 or less) is more than enough power an i5/i7 and a high end gpu at stock speeds. Plus the CM elite 120 has a usb 3.0 up front, the silverstone does not.

Granted, the cooling does look better for the components on the silverstone, but honestly, both will provide enough air cooling in a small box with so many open vents anyhow. The only thing that's really going with the silverstone is that they moved the PSU up front to give you more headroom for a better cpu cooler. But if I were doing it, I'd probably find a way to fit an all-in-one liquid cooler like the H60.

If I was expecting to pay $200 for an ITX case w/ PSU , I'd expect it to be a semi or fully modular PSU; shit for my money, I'd want 80+ silver or gold rated. There are just way more ITX case offerings on the market for way less than this, including if you budget a PSU separately.
 
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