HTPC + Gaming Desktop in One

[UpstartXT]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

I will be using this computer to be a Home Theater PC. I plan on ripping Blu-Rays without any compression using this computer, but the file will actually be going to a shared network folder on my WHS (Windows Home Server). I understand the massive storage requirements this entails. I would then like to play those Blu-Ray DVDs BACK from the WHS using my HTPC via Windows Media Center and I think "Any DVD" or something like that which allows me to play Blu Ray (advice welcomed there). I will be hooking up the HTPC to my 1080P LCD projector on a 92" white screen via HDMI. I would like the audio to be passed through the HDMI cable.

Secondarily, I would like to be able to game with this machine, but this is not top priority. Unfortunately, I am predicting you will tell me I will still have to put a significant more amount of money into the machine (aimed at a beefier video card) if I also want this functionality as I will need something powerful to play at the large resolution (1920x1080) required to make it look right on such a large screen.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

Under $1000 U.S. (if possible)

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

U.S.A.

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

Defintiely a nVidia and Intel fanboy (as well as Corsair PSUs), but I may have to put allegiances aside for the HDMI audio pass-through and go for ATI.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

None.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

Yes.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Willing to do modest overclock if necessary.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.

1920x1080.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

ASAP

________________________________________________________________________

I have just put together a build for my WHS and am looking to combine it with an HTPC build.

Again, I will be using this to primarily have Windows Media Center play full, uncompressed Blu-Ray files being streamed from the WHS machine. I will also be using the HTPC to do the ripping to the WHS machine. I would also like to be able to use this computer for gaming, but am happy with medium settings on all current games, but require 1920x1080 resolution.

I have put together a preliminary build here, but please change any and everything that you think would be better.

I appreciate your time, this forum has saved me butt loads of cash (and headaches) a million times.
_________________________________________________________________________

CASE: LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-C32B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811112147
$149.99


CPU: Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80580Q9400 - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819115131
$189.99

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128372
$94.99

RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231122
$54.99

PSU: Antec TruePower New TP-750 750W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE ... - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817371025
$99.99

HD: Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000AADS 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136358
$54.99

Video Card: XFX HD-487A-ZHFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814150394
$144.99

BD/DVD: LG Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA Internal Combo LG Blu-ray Reader & 16X LightScribe DVD±R DVD Burner - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827136162
$124.99

Fan/Heatsink: COOLER MASTER GeminII S RR-CCH-PBU1-GP 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835103046
$34.99

OS: Windows RC 7

Subtotal: $946.91


Changelog:
Wrong Price for Case, is now Accurate
PSU changed from http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817139006
BD changed from http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827106326
Heatsink changed from http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835186134
OS changed from http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116488
Case changed from http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811163118
Heatsink changed from http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835185129
HD changed from http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136098

 

[yh125d]

That case is only $120 at newegg

If you live near a microcenter you can get the Q9400 for $130, or a Q9550 for $170

Antec Truepower New 750 would be a good alternate to the corsair. Instead of $120 and a $10 rebate, it's $100 shipped. Quality is about the same, both are rock solid. With the antec though you gain 1/2 modular capability which can help a lot in smaller HTPC cases so you dont have a ton of extra cable to hide and hinder airflow (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16817371025)

The HD is about a 3 year old design with only 8mb cache, and I think its a two platter drive so it's not gonna be all that fast compared to larger modern drives. Something like this samsung (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16822152102) or this WD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16822136284) would not only triple your capacity for ~$40 (take it from me, BR needs a lot of space, I have over 2TB worth) but 4x the cache and definitely a faster drive.

GPU is good


I'd steer clear of that drive. It will rip your blu-rays yeah, but it won't burn anything. Not even DVD or CD. Now I know most people have no need for a BR burner so I'm not recommending that but a lot of people still burn CDs and DVDs fairly often. This is the one I have (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16827136133) it's deactivated at newegg but you can still see it won customer's choice awards and had hundreds of great reviews. It will read your blu rays, any HD-DVD you stumble across, and read/write DVD and CD, as well as lightscribe. It came with PowerDVD 7.3 when I bought it, but I don't use it. I think its discontinued now, but I'd try to find one. If not I'd go for something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827136162

I know it's more expensive, but you really get what you pay for with the cheap drives.

Heatsink is ok, but not a very good choice anymore for the price, and might not fit in the case you picked (HTPC cases tend not to have very good clearance). http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835185129 is about the same price, but only half the height. Cooling prowess is probably similar. The scythe also has a little brother if that's too big for you


As for OS I'd use the windows 7 RC til it comes out then buy that

 

[UpstartXT]

Hey I'm having this really weird problem, every time I click on one of your links it just gives me a return of like 50 things according to some sort of search parameters. For example, your Samsung hard drive link brings me to a list of 21 Samsung hard drives so I can't tell which one you are referring to. That second BD link you gave me and the scythe heat sink links work, though.

What do you think of the case I have selected (I fixed the price, typo)? I also found this, and there are plenty of others of course.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811163055

As for the gaming, like I said this will be a secondary, occasional use. It's really just for when I feel like using the big screen or a friend is over. I already have a gaming rig that I use now. That being said, I would need something with a beefy processor anyway to do the uncompressed blu-ray streaming, right? Or if I were to play over the internet content that I needed to upsize, like watching Hulu? So I said why not and through in the $150 card and now I've got a real simple way to get HDMI audio pass through and turned my HTPC into a pretty beefy gaming rig.

Also, like I said, I will be ripping the Blu-Ray straight to the WHS. I was under the impression I could do this in a way that it wouldn't even ever touch my HTPC's hard drive, but simply be using its processing power, BD, and apps. All of the media, again is being streamed to the HTPC from the WHS. Doesn't this mean all I would need to have on the HD is my OS install, MCE, add-ins, ripping apps, drivers, and an anti-virus? Why go for 2TB drives?

As for Windows 7, it looks like they discontinued handing out the download, although they are still giving out keys. Is there somewhere I can still receive this (hope this isn't inappropriate to ask)? What about possible driver or application glitches/issues being that it is a new OS? Although, it would definitely save me some cash.

I am going to just keep updating the original post and keep a change-log that way people won't be confused. I have updated the heatsink, the price of the case (typo), and BD.

 

[UpstartXT]

Sorry for double post, but does anyone know if that heatsink, http://www.newegg.com/Product/...9&ref=dynamitedata.com, will fit with the RAM in on this board http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128372 ?

 

[elconejito]

yeah all these links are funky....

Anyway, you've got a WD3200AAJS in the original post which, like yh125d said, is an old and slow drive. For the exact same cost at newegg the WD3200AAKS is newer and single platter so it's cooler, lower power, etc. You could spend 5 more bucks and look at the WD5000AADS which is a new green drive with single platter.

You're right about the HDD space you need, but it doesnt hurt to have more available. If you install a few games on there that eats up space real quick. I'd imagine that the BR rip will save on the HDD at least temporarily, right?

If you aren't too picky about running at max settings that 4870 will probably be just fine.

I don't think you can download the RC anymore from microsoft. Frankly i wouldn't trust those on torrents and whatnot. Do you know any geeks near you who would have a copy?

Other than that I think you're good.

 

[yh125d]

Links are fixed. Whenever I try to post a link with parentheses it screws up


If gaming is the secondary use, and rarely used yeah you don't need that much GPU. Something like a low power 4770 would handle the playback fine, pass through audio, run quiet and cool with low idle power since it would be doing that most of the time, and it performs almost as good as a 4850 which is fine for casual gaming at 1080p. You just wouldn't be able to max out all settings

As far as needed CPU power, even an Intel Atom can handle it if it has a GPU capable of offloading the rendering (which you will). As far as watching stuff off the internet, a lot of that can be flash or similar codecs, which use the CPU a lot more. Even so, a good dual core is plenty to handle that. Honestly I think your uses would be better filled by an e5400 or e7500, you don't need a quad. Aquad would be more money, more overkill, and more heat in your case (which for HTPCs means louder fans = bad!)

For ripping software I use Anydvd HD for my blu rays. I bought a lifetime license for like $80 and I think it's worth it if you will be ripping a lot of BRs. It's real simple to use. I just insert the disk, wait for it to read the disk, right click the anydvd icon and "rip to video file". I specify the directory to rip to (I rip to a 2TB external drive, you'll be going to WHS) and start. When its done I go to the folder, look for the stream folder, and find the biggest .m2ts file, which will be the main movie. I rename it and move it where I want it and delete the rest (which is menus, extras, etc) and end up with a 20-40gb uncompressed BR movie.

I wasn't suggesting 2 1TB drives, I was suggesting buying one of those instead of the one you picked out. Generally speaking the larger the drive, the faster and since you're dealing with a lot of BR movies I'd recommend at least a 640gb drive, you'll end up using it all.

I hadn't heard of them stopping the downloads for Win7, but since you can still get a key I would do so. to get the .iso you can torrent it (legal since it's freely distributed) or im sure it's up on tons of file hosting networks, like cnet or something

The heatsink should clear the DIMMS no problem, but maybe not the NB heatsink. I'd change my recommendation to the CM GeminII - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835103046 - which is a bit taller to clear it while still being short enough to easily clear a HTPC case. It's also cheaper and performs better (but might be slightly louder)

Oh and I like the silverstone case you picked. I'd remove the 80mm fans it comes with and just put a low speed yate loon in the 120mm mount. Should be enough to keep the system cool enough while being near silent

 

[wallspc]

Originally posted by: yh125d


As far as needed CPU power, even an Intel Atom can handle it if it has a GPU capable of offloading the rendering (which you will). As far as watching stuff off the internet, a lot of that can be flash or similar codecs, which use the CPU a lot more. Even so, a good dual core is plenty to handle that. Honestly I think your uses would be better filled by an e5400 or e7500, you don't need a quad. Aquad would be more money, more overkill, and more heat in your case (which for HTPCs means louder fans = bad!)

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2886&p=4

Chart at the bottom...

Even if it "averages" at 80ish% that doesn't mean it won't go over 100%, at which point the video will stutter. The CPU usage fly's up when you hit fast paced scenes.

 

[jkresh]

that setup should work but for real gaming at 1920x1080 on anything relatively recent the 4870 is borderline, unless you have to buy now I would wait till windows 7 is out, but then dx11 cards will be out (and prices on current cards will have dropped, especialy the 4870x2) also i5 will be more available and will give you a lot more potential then a core 2 quad will (especially if you decide to transcode some of those ripped bluerays to save space).

 

[yh125d]

Originally posted by: wallspc

Originally posted by: yh125d


As far as needed CPU power, even an Intel Atom can handle it if it has a GPU capable of offloading the rendering (which you will). As far as watching stuff off the internet, a lot of that can be flash or similar codecs, which use the CPU a lot more. Even so, a good dual core is plenty to handle that. Honestly I think your uses would be better filled by an e5400 or e7500, you don't need a quad. Aquad would be more money, more overkill, and more heat in your case (which for HTPCs means louder fans = bad!)

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2886&p=4

Chart at the bottom...

Even if it "averages" at 80ish% that doesn't mean it won't go over 100%, at which point the video will stutter. The CPU usage fly's up when you hit fast paced scenes.

And that's a 3 year old article that with todays advancements and hardware, is useless. Now we have new GPUs and video players, with new codecs and video decoders, that allow a slow CPU like an atom handle the playback with a properly enabled GPU

 

[wallspc]

recommendation:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128394
GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
ATI Radeon HD4200, DirectX10.1 and 2 oz copper PCB

79.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103649
AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Black Processor - Retail

119.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811112147
LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-C32B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - Retail

149.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145256
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Desktop Memory Model CMD4GX2M2A1066C5 - Retail

84.99


http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817139004
CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail

79.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827135188
ASUS Black 6X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal 6X Blu-Ray DVD Combo Model BC-06B1ST - OEM

89.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136074
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM

49.99


=654.93

Notes:

No need for non-stock fan/heatsink if not overclocking, no need to overclock.

No need for burn ability, use your desktop or home server for burning. Either one is more practical then the HTPC, HS will most likely have the files you are burning on it, and desktop is just more convenient.

Onboard GPU (HD4200) is fine for watching bluray and modest gaming, if you want better gaming add a video card.

imho there is a huge build quality difference between a lian-li and silverstone case, well worth the extra $30. Also the ll internal case fans will noticeably reduce noise vs the external ones on the silverstone.

WD has a 320GB 16mb cache drive for same price as the 8mb - 49

You are correct that you don't need a large or super fast drive for this, you will be ripping to and streaming from the HS. You will want to mount it as a network drive and yes, the rips will never touch your local HDD.

 

[UpstartXT]

Well now I'm totally confused. I definitely do want to do the gaming so I want to stick with the 4870 video card.

That case does look better.

So to be clear, the Blu-Ray rip will NEVER touch any machine's hard drive besides the server's, provided I do it the correct way. I.E. it's possible if you know what you are doing?

What's the advantage of the more expensive Corsair RAM over the G.Skill RAM?

Since I am going to be sticking with the 4870 video card, is it necessary to get a motherboard that has internal video? Isn't this going to be possibly glitchy? I guess I can turn it off in the BIOS but that's kind of a pain. Why pay for the integeral video when I am not using it?

How can I use WHS to rip Blu-Ray's? I went with a very low performance processor and such in my WHS, will this be able to handle this task? Will the needed software work on a WHS? Will this interfere with my backups? Will I be able to stream to other machines while it is ripping?

And Wall what is better http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136358 or the one you suggested.

 

[yh125d]

So to be clear, the Blu-Ray rip will NEVER touch any machine's hard drive besides the server's, provided I do it the correct way. I.E. it's possible if you know what you are doing?

Correct. However, what I like to do instead of watching movies directly off of my external storage, I copy a handful to my main HD and just turn the external off for a few days. You could do that with your home server if you like, but that's just up to you

What's the advantage of the more expensive Corsair RAM over the G.Skill RAM?

None for an HTPC. The corsair is 1066 speed which will give you a small boost in synthetic benchmarks, but even in a gaming rig 800vs 1066 is no difference. There's no need for it. And even any performance gain (like 1-2%, its a HTPC, who cares) would be negated by the looser timings on the corsair. The corsair has bigger heatspreaders, but it's not like ram runs hot or needs active cooling anyhow. Quality is about the same between the brands. HOWEVER, the corsair runs at 2.1v, which is very high for DDR2. You want ram rated at 1.9v or less like the g.skill. High voltage ram = much higher rate of failure. Even if the corsair were $5 cheaper I'd personally get the g.skill

Since I am going to be sticking with the 4870 video card, is it necessary to get a motherboard that has internal video? Isn't this going to be possibly glitchy? I guess I can turn it off in the BIOS but that's kind of a pain. Why pay for the integeral video when I am not using it?

No you don't need it, and no it won't be buggy either. When theres a GPU present with the monitor attached to it instead of the motherboard, it will shut off the IGP. It's not so much that you're paying extra for the IGP, it's that the majority of AMD motherboards these days have one anyway. And I'd disagree with wallspc, the internal radeon 4200 on that motherboard is NOT good enough for casual gaming. Maybe several year old titles at 1280x720 or less, but not anything in the last 3-4 years at 1080p. You want a dedicated card. Not to mention the 785g still has limited audio over HDMI options compared to the 4xxx series cards

How can I use WHS to rip Blu-Ray's? I went with a very low performance processor and such in my WHS, will this be able to handle this task? Will the needed software work on a WHS? Will this interfere with my backups? Will I be able to stream to other machines while it is ripping?

I doubt you can use WHS to do your ripping. You'll want to have the BR drive in your HTPC or your desktop, install the ripping software on it, and rip it to a directory on the server (alternately you could just rip it to that machine, then move it to the server)

You won't be able to watch the movie as its ripping. Either watch then rip, or rip then watch. I'd rip then watch, so you don't have the disk drive noise, and to make sure you don't get any read problems during playback.

 

[UpstartXT]

Originally posted by: yh125d
You won't be able to watch the movie as its ripping. Either watch then rip, or rip then watch. I'd rip then watch, so you don't have the disk drive noise, and to make sure you don't get any read problems during playback.

Thanks for the detailed post yh125d. I understood everything you said and agree.

For the last question, I understand that if I want to rip a Casino Royale Blu-Ray DVD by putting it into my HTPC's drive and then use rip software to put it on the WHS shared drive, I will not be able to also watch Casino Royale during this process.

My question is, say I already had ripped The Big Lebowski on Blu-Ray a week ago to my WHS. Will I be able to play The Big Lebowski on my HTPC streamed from my WHS, while my HTPC is ripping Casino Royale to the WHS?

 

[yh125d]

That should be fine yeah. You'll have gigabit ethernet on both boards so that should be plenty of bandwidth

 

[UpstartXT]

I currently have a gaming rig that I do my gaming on. I am pretty heavily into gaming and play at 1680x1050 resolution and like to use max settings.

Here are my current rig's specs:

e8500
GTX 260
EP45 DS3L
4GB G.Skill DDR2 800
WD Caviar SE16
Corsair 750TX


Would it make sense to replace the e8500 with the Q9400 and put the e8500 in the HTPC?

How much would doing this hurt the performance of my HTPC in terms of the applications I have outlined

How much would going from a e8500 to a Q9400 improve my general game performance (note: I am an Arma 2 player which as I understand uses a lot more CPU power than other titles)

 

[yh125d]

If you play a lot of ARMA /other games that benefit from quad core, I'd put the Q9400 in the gaming rig. Your HPTC won't need a quad for casual gaming, and it would be better to have a dual core in there instead (lower heat = lower noise = good)

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: wallspc
recommendation:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128394
GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
ATI Radeon HD4200, DirectX10.1 and 2 oz copper PCB

79.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103649
AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Black Processor - Retail

119.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811112147
LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-C32B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - Retail

149.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145256
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Desktop Memory Model CMD4GX2M2A1066C5 - Retail

84.99


http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817139004
CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail

79.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827135188
ASUS Black 6X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal 6X Blu-Ray DVD Combo Model BC-06B1ST - OEM

89.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136074
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM

49.99


=654.93

Notes:

No need for non-stock fan/heatsink if not overclocking, no need to overclock.

No need for burn ability, use your desktop or home server for burning. Either one is more practical then the HTPC, HS will most likely have the files you are burning on it, and desktop is just more convenient.

Onboard GPU (HD4200) is fine for watching bluray and modest gaming, if you want better gaming add a video card.

imho there is a huge build quality difference between a lian-li and silverstone case, well worth the extra $30. Also the ll internal case fans will noticeably reduce noise vs the external ones on the silverstone.

WD has a 320GB 16mb cache drive for same price as the 8mb - 49

You are correct that you don't need a large or super fast drive for this, you will be ripping to and streaming from the HS. You will want to mount it as a network drive and yes, the rips will never touch your local HDD.

This ... except D)

Gigabyte 785g / Phenom 550BE: $150

Silverstone LC13B-E : $110 ($90 AR)

Toss in the XFX HD4870 1Gb for $145 and you are in for less than $700 (you could probably grab DDR2 800 and save another $20-$30 without really impacting performance).

For what it's worth I've worked with 1Tb Caviar Greens and Blacks in my storage and can't tell any difference. For your OS/Apps there is a WD Caviar Blue 640Gb for $60 on eblast with promo code EMCLWNW27 (expire 09/03/2009) if you feel you need the extra space in the rig.

I'd probably put the OS on a front partition with enough space for my favorite games and an OS recovery partition at the end of the drive. Any other games I'd probably load in the 'vast middle'.

And if you feel like you need or want the extra core(s) for gaming you just can't top the Phenom 720BE - there should be some AT articles floating around about it.

AND if AMD is too much of the Dark Side for you it's still hard to top the e8400 - I believe it's been on eBlast in the last month or so for $160 and you might find a reasonable combo with it.

 

[UpstartXT]

Originally posted by: UpstartXT
I currently have a gaming rig that I do my gaming on. I am pretty heavily into gaming and play at 1680x1050 resolution and like to use max settings.

Here are my current rig's specs:

e8500
GTX 260
EP45 DS3L
4GB G.Skill DDR2 800
WD Caviar SE16
Corsair 750TX


Would it make sense to replace the e8500 with the Q9400 and put the e8500 in the HTPC?

How much would doing this hurt the performance of my HTPC in terms of the applications I have outlined

How much would going from a e8500 to a Q9400 improve my general game performance (note: I am an Arma 2 player which as I understand uses a lot more CPU power than other titles)

Sorry for the continual updates, I waited this time to do more research and it seems like the best thing for Arma 2 is an i7.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com...with-18-CPUs/Practice/

Right now I am thinking this:

Take out HD, CPU, Mboard, and RAM from my gaming rig I already have (details above in the quote), and use this in the HTPC along with the 4890, PSU, case, and BD drive we have discussed (links in the original post).

Then I will put in the gaming machine these components:

New Intel Core i7 Processor 920
$250 on Ebay (factory sealed guaranteed)

EVGA 141-BL-E757-TR LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX X58 SLI LE Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813188049
$239.99

G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ - Retail
$119.99

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136319
$74.99

This way I will be able to build a HTPC AND update my gaming rig with the latest i7 hardware. All for a total cost of around $1200.