Silver47 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Ok, I built my current HTPC over 3 years ago on a tight budget. Its specs are: Intel E2180 2.0Ghz 2GB DDR2 Gigabyte P31 DS3 Mobo Nvidia 8500GT Nova 500-T Duel tuner card WD 160GB HDD WD 250GB HDD LG Bluray Drive And all stuffed into a Gigiabyte ATX case Anyway, at the moment the case is lying on its side as it hasnt much room to where its been moved so started thinking about moving it into a Micro ATX case and seeing as I would have to change the Mobo I might as well change everything else :D Was thinking of using the Antec NSK 2480 http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=MTE0Nw== and use an AMD Althon II 245e processor and a MATX mobo with a 880G chipset to match along with either 2-4GB of Ram to go with. But AMD's Zacate has thrown a wench in my plans as a possible alternative. Seeing as my HTPCs duties are really watching Blurays and 720p MKV files watching/recording TV listening/ripping music web browsing Zacate should be easily enough for it plus its low power and passively cooled and has better graphics but lacks the only advantage I can see the Althon II 245e provides in terms of CPU power. Just torn between both of them and just unsure whether the loss in CPU would be a big loss to me and just want some advice in deciding P.S. Ignor the HDD drives for now, I'll be updating them afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nebula2020 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 I have a case similar to this http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=MTE0Ng== Mine has a LCD panel other side of drive bay. I despise it. It looks like a VHS player under my TV. Get a slim case with a slim BR drive. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/156186 http://www.compucase-hec.co.uk/img/mini_itx/large/8k01.jpg :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notuptome2004 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Well i would go with no less then 4GB of ram and if you can Phenom 2 based chip of sorts quad core be good idea if you plan to record shows and watch other for better performance. also make sure ya got in your budget room to buy windows 7 pro 64 or so . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Shiv Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 http://slickdeals.net/?pno=46785&lno=1&afsrc=1 Processor http://www.cetoncorp.com/buy.php Tuner card Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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