The Most Silent HTPC

lirsch · Post by **lirsch** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 12:42 pm

Hi All, I'm kinda new to this forum but have heard (and read) a lot in here so I guess it's the best place to get pro answer

I'm trying to build the most silent HTPC that in general will be used for Movies (Full HD of course ...), Music (will be connected to Onkyo 607 reciever), Gaming (medium demanding graphics), photo editing and internet.

The HTPC system should be:
- Very silent (most improtant)
- Great looking (to get my wife's approval )
- Smooth running of Windows 7 + XBMC ( + photoshop editing)

The current configuration I have:

CPU:
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maalitehdas · Post by **maalitehdas** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 2:11 pm

You're component list is looking good in general, I think you're able to build it nice and silent enough. If you're not gaming, please consider a lower wattage graphic card. Pick one with HDMI out and all those fancy sound formats you might need. All HDMI-cabable video cards, starting from GF210, are able to handle 1080p movies smoothly and photoshopping easily. GF210 has a 7.1 sound via HDMI but it lacks those modern HD sound formats. Well, there are not much movies supporting them either, at least not yet.

Memory amount is important for photoshopping, 4Gb sounds great. You'll open and handle several big RAW-images at the same time with that amount. Photoshop gets slow if it needs to use HDD cache, so keep it there. The memory speed is not as relevant but it does affect working speed with i5 processor (that processor will not be a bottleneck for photoshop).

Sound card: You don't need one with a good graphic card.

PSU: You don't need that much output for a single low wattage graphic card build. 650W is for high-performance-crossfired-gaming-GPU's. Please consider a 430W at max - even that will be an overkill, but it'll at least reach it's maximum efficiency level (when you're watching HD movies in other screen and editing a lot of photos in another at the same time...) You can easily go with 380W too. Seasonic has nice humming sound.

lirsch · Post by **lirsch** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 3:00 pm

Thx for the reply, what do you think about the cases + CPU coolers will it fit? I don't really know if all of these parts will fit inside these cases ...

What do you think?

hybrid2d4x4 · Post by **hybrid2d4x4** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 6:48 pm

Your option 2 from vid cards will be all you need to bitstream every possible audio stream over HDMI including the lossless codecs (only the ATI 5xxx series and the i3/i5 32nm CPUs' integrated video can do this at the moment). The soundcard is completely obsolete/redundant if you are outputting audio over HDMI by one of the means I mentioned (I'm pretty sure that's what maalitehdas meant in his post as well).

Also, if a x6xx card is enough for your games, odds are you could step down to an i3 or i5 without much (if any) impact on game performance, while noticeably lowering your power consumption. I take this back if you need the quad for video transcoding or processing images or whatever else that is highly multi-threaded on a regular basis.

For the CPU cooler, I like the Ninja mini. And for case/PSU, I wouldn't trust anything Zalman to have good quality fans, so a knock against those from me. I don't have any hands-on experience with the GD04/05 but I like the design in principle- it looks very promising for gaming HTPCs if you use a PSU with a 120mm fan on the bottom, and have the left side case fan feeding cool air to the vid card. Also, as previously mentioned, you don't need ~600W for this kind of setup. I can see the appeal of the X-650 (if I'm not confusing it with another) if it runs semi-passive and is rated 80+ Gold, but just so you know, some of the quiet 400-500W PSUs in the recommended section on this site are an option as well, and will probably save you a fair amount of money.

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:00 pm

lirsch wrote:Thx for the reply, what do you think about the cases + CPU coolers will it fit? I don't really know if all of these parts will fit inside these cases ...

I'm not sure if the GD-04/5 and Ninja Mini combo will work if you install a DVD drive - the pics I've seen suggest that this might be a problem, as the DVD mounting space overhangs the CPU cooler area (the GD-04 page here notes a 70mm height restriction when an optical drive is used.)

FWIW, the Ninja Mini (fanless) in my Antec NSK2480 does a pretty decent job.

lirsch · Post by **lirsch** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 10:05 pm

Ok guys, thanks for your recommendations ...

Now, If you had the chance, now, in March-2010 to build the most silent HTPC that will be good enough for mid-range gaming, but mostly listening/watching advanced formts of AV while still having lower power consumption which components (not neccesarily from my list) would you use? (of course they all hould fit together...

)

lirsch · Post by **lirsch** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 1:31 pm

Any thoughts?

ces · Post by **ces** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 10:26 pm

There is a new Silverstone Sugo SG07 that might work for you. I believe it is coming out in the next month or so.

Do a search and you can find some pictures of it. It's small with a lot of cooling.

lirsch · Post by **lirsch** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:00 pm

Looks pretty cool but it's very high, isn't it? well, I mostly am looking for a slim one...
But that's a good idea to look in the 2010 CES, haven't thought of that, thank you.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 10:08 pm

Antec NSK2400-series might be good case with appropriate cooler like Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 or Scythe Shuriken rev. B. Silverstone makes quite few good HTPC cases. Antec is another good that makes several size HTPC cases.

lirsch · Post by **lirsch** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 8:42 am

Does someone knows where I can buy (and ship internationally) the POWERCOLOR Go! Green HD5750?
I heard it's the fastest card I can get with passive cooling for now.