After upgrading my 19 inch monitor to a 42 Inch LED TV earlier this year, it became apparent that my 8 year old Dell desktop that I was using as an HTPC needed upgraded too.
Requirements for my build were a full size GPU and room for at least one soundcard.
After struggling to find a stylish HTPC case that fit my needs, I just gave up an purchased a full size tower that is so big it can double as a coffee table.
Because of budget constraints, I avoided my planned server upgrade by just getting rid of it and placing all my hardrives in the new HTPC case.
Some parts came from my old HTPC and my server.
I chose the motherboard because it has 10 sata ports to accomidate all my hardrives.
I chose the case because it holds 8 3.5in Hardrivers and 2 2.5in hardrives.
I chose the CPU because I don't want lag when I play Super Mario.
Specs
Case:
NZXT H630 Black
Mobo:
ASUS Maximus VI Extreme ATX LGA1150 Z87
CPU:
Intel Core i7 4770K Unlocked Quad Core 3.5GHZ LGA1150 Haswell
GPU:
ASUS GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU II OC 1075MHZ 2GB 6.0GHZ GDDR5
Memory:
Corsair Vengeance 2X4GB DDR3-2133
Hardrives:
1 x OCZ Vertex 4 128GB SSD 2.5in
1 x WD Red 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 16MB Cache 2.5in
1 x WD Caviar Black 3TB 64MB Cache 7200RPM 3.5in
6 x WD Red 3TB 64MB Cache 3.5IN
PSU:
Corsair HX850W
Soundcard:
Creative X-Fi Titanium (for ASIO line in)
Benchmark
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 3.789 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 2.335 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 1.220 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.779 seconds
Score: 2339
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.249 seconds
Flood filling... 0.311 seconds
Direct copying... 0.378 seconds
Small renders... 1.016 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 0.693 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 0.420 seconds
Score: 7173
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.284 seconds
Populate database... 0.878 seconds
Save database... 0.140 seconds
Reload database... 0.045 seconds
Search database... 0.792 seconds
Sort database... 0.699 seconds
Group database... 0.511 seconds
Score: 6421
JRMark (version 19.0.60): 5311
Pictures
After a month of use, I can say that I have no regrets with the build.
Importing and analyzing in MC is super quick and video playback is smooth and flawless.
I have plenty of room for future upgrades.
It runs very cool and the case fans are barely noticeable.
Having all media on internal drives instead of on my network is awesome.
Quiet PCs seam perfect for audio only systems, but for video I think mid or full size towers are the way to go.
If I didn't combine my HTPC and server I would have used this case:
Bitfenix Prodigy M Micro ATX
http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/chassis/prodigy-mIts not too big and has 5 pci slots
Author
Topic: My New HTPC Build (Read 2341 times)