Building two from one: $500 gaming and HTPC from old rig

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brokejumper
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:02 am

Building two from one: $500 gaming and HTPC from old rig

Post by brokejumper » Tue Sep 03, 2013 7:59 am

I have what I hope is an interesting problem. I am looking to turn my old silent build (originally built in 2006 with the help of this board) into two computers:

1) a new silent/very quiet HTPC/light gaming computer for the living room in a horizontal HTPC case

2) a quiet office/gaming rig to run modern games (Skyrim, Max Payne 3, etc) at 1920x1080 and possibly a dual monitor setup in the future. Will be housed in a desk cabinet so 'silent' is not needed but quiet when not under load highly preferred.

The trick is, of course, the budget. I would like to save as much money as possible by using parts from my previous build in both systems. The overall budget needs to be under $600 if possible but I am only really getting my head around what is actually feasible with this price range.

I could go into detail as to what my idea of the build might be but really it would not be particularly informed at this point.

Here are the main questions as I see them right now that I would like to put to the board:

1) Recommendation for components for new desktop build with $500-600 budget (w/out new display)
2) Case recommendation for horizontal ATX HTPC case that fits the passive 7750 card

My current parts are:

CPU 2.53 gigahertz Intel Core2 Duo
Motherboard Gigabyte EP35-DS3R
Ram 4GB (2x 2GB DDR2 6400)
Video Card HIS iSilence H775P1GD Radeon HD 7750 1GB
(Also have passive GeForce 7600 GT in storage)
OS SSD Mushkin Chronos 120 GB SATA
Hard Drives (750 GB and 500 GB + external backup)
Sound Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
Front Panel Syba 3.5-Inch USB 3.0 Expansion Port and Card Reader
CPU Cooler Arctic Cooling Freezer 11 LP Heatsink with 92 mm PWM Fan
Case Antec Solo
Display 1920x1080
OS Windows 7

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