I have been putting together a couple of HTPCs for friends of mine and I was going to make a post of with pictures but don't have the time just now. Saw this and thought I'd put what I've put together.
Note this is totally silent (except the optical drive when running) runs at 35°C max (that I have recorded)
This system will be at the top end of your budget with a Streacom case and no OS (260 euro for a box
)
http://www.streacom.com/products/fc5-evo-fanless-chassis/There are even better boxes for much less from HDPlex - my friends are snobs and thought the streacom fit in better with the
Naim euh
named gear. Also they have models with much smaller footprints
http://www.hd-plex.com/ If you don't need or want an optical drive the small model is only 139 euro (ships from either Germany or the US so no duty) and just as well put together if not better -- just question of looks. or impatience .... often you have to wait for a couple of months if they are out of stock, which is a drag too.
Both the seacom and the hdplex are heavy duty with a frontplate thicker than high end amplifier so for gear snobs these are great too
Both brands use the same cooling idea.
Case: Streacom FC5OD EVO Black Fanless HTPC Aluminium Chassis
PSU: Streacom 150W nano with an AC/DC adapter block (I prefer to have an external block to keep the heat down inside even though its still got some headroom - otherwise I'd get an internal Pico 160watts or 120 watt internal PSU (this system only needs 100watts btw)
Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-Z97M-D3H LGA1150 Micro ATX (or your choice was cheaper than the asus boards in France; the smaller HDPlex model needs an ITX board)
SEE EDIT BELOW PLZProc: Intel 4th Gen Core i3 4360T 3.2GHz 35W HD4600 4MB Dual Core CPU or 4350T (very low power consumption more than enough for audio, and video is actually quite good - not for MADVR ultimate settings though)
RAM: Crucial Standard 8GB (2x4GB) 1600MHz CL11 DDR3 Memory (sure you can get better, but do you need it for just audio? need 8, 4 will work but I always get more ram than needed
)
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD Three-layer Cell Solid State Drive (just happen to like samsungs, not as good as the pro, I have a crucial at home works fine)
Slim DVD drive (or blue ray whatever must be slim) I think its just an optiarc they wanted this to play the occasion audio cd.
you might need an IR receiver (beacuse they went with the streacom I got them this
Streacom ST-IRPB Receiver
if you plan to use in the future cards you'd need a slot "riser" adapter to have the card horizontal (which is pretty cheap), some sata cables and a cable for USB3 to use all of the ports
you can get better ram, processors, and go with the Samsung Pro ssd -- if you want an i5 or i7 get the T models (low power usage); don't see why you would need it for your use.
if you want to go headless, get teamviewer (its free) to remotely control the HTPC for admin/maintenance. Have an iPad? good get JRemote as a controller and you are good to go.
Can this be done cheaper and smaller? ... sure with NUCs, otherwise there are very quiet PC with fans (big ones), but they cost as much. Cheap small diameter fans always make noise IMO. This will be silent, run cold (do not put it in a drawer of course; needs air flow around it), and looks great -- no trademarks even. The streacom you could even put a 4to green drive in locally, its got the room for more than that, and its still extremely quiet. One of my friends decided not to buy a NAS when he heard the low drive noise.
hope this helps
edit:
The actual music/media library will be stored in a NAS on the network that will also run a copy of JRiver to serve the media to the local clients
No you can't install JRiver directly on a NAS, the HTPC would be the media server attached to the NAS.
oh also ... Personally I don't see the need for the asus card if you are going toslink to the Chord -- others may not agree.
edit: the Gigabyte board mentioned above, I cannot recommend ... it has neither optical nor S/PDIF coax outputs. Although it has spdif on the motherboard, go figure.
Sorry.