tfreer85 Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 Hey guys, I've recently built a Home Theatre PC, I'm quite happy with it, however i'm not fully happy with it, and i'm looking into building a Home theatre cabinet to just incorporate PC into that. What my options are: 1) keep the current HTPC and drop it into the cabinet as is and over clock it 2) Sell off the current HTPC and upgrade to what you really want 3) part out the case and still use the HD's, Mobo, Processor, etc. in the cabinet. Current Specs of the computer: Motherboard: Abit A8N Processor: AMD 64-bit Venice Memory: 2 gigs DDR400 Video Card: 8800 GTS Superclocked Case: Silverstone GD01MX (Silver) Power Supply: Silverstone Modular 800W Network Card: Belkin N-1 Hard Drives: 300gig Sata, 500 gig Sata, and 40gig IDE OS: Windows Vista Ultimate Wanted/Thought Upgrades: Motherboard: Abit AB9 Quad LGA 775 Processor: Kentsfield Quad-Core 2.4GHZ Processor Memory: 2 gigs DDR 2 Video Card: 8800GTS or above Power Supply: Silverstone Modular 800W If I upgrade my mobo, and processor and drop it in, i have to reformat, and I got Vista Ultimate for free so I'd have to pay for that. So at the same time I could sell the current HTPC, and cover the cost of building the other one without any problems and get the upgraded Mobo and Processor that I want. The computer is a hard core gamer/HTPC so I want it to kick some serious ass. While I'm happy with my current setup (not completely happy though), do you think its worth me trying to salvage parts from the current HTPC or start from scratch? I'm leaning towards start from scratch.... Tyson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cygnusx1 Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 Is the venice a dual core? If not, upgrade to a nice dual core. The resto of the system is perfectly fine for an HTPC even to run HD Video. I use about the same system for my HTPC running Windows Media Center. It is the COOLEST thing since sliced bread. We watch all our movies, timeshift TV, record TV, All my photos, my camcorder movies, all my music, weather, XM radio....you name it. It's all in one box. I use Dual MCE TV Tuners from nVidia and they control two independant HD cable boxes. One box is dedicated to the PC for it's own use and one box is "public". I can record two shows simultaneously. The ONLY Gripe is that I dont have HD capable TV cards so when I record widescreen HD content it plays back widescreen SD. I tried Vista and went back to MCE for compatibility reasons. I use the Asus A8N-SLI MB AMD 3500+ processor 2gigs of 2-2-2-5 RAM Dual 250G Drives in RAID-0 config. A single 8000 series nVidia video card. ( I think it's the one you listed) Dual TV Tuners from nVidia with Remote Controller for Media Center. A standard mid tower case on it's side in the TV stand. Playback on a Samsung 50" DLP Just pop in a Dual Core AMD, Dual TV tuners, and go! Everything else is good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tfreer85 Posted July 31, 2007 Author Share Posted July 31, 2007 Is the venice a dual core? The ONLY Gripe is that I dont have HD capable TV cards so when I record widescreen HD content it plays back widescreen SD. I tried Vista and went back to MCE for compatibility reasons. I use the Asus A8N-SLI MB AMD 3500+ processor 2gigs of 2-2-2-5 RAM Dual 250G Drives in RAID-0 config. A single 8000 series nVidia video card. ( I think it's the one you listed) Dual TV Tuners from nVidia with Remote Controller for Media Center. A standard mid tower case on it's side in the TV stand. Playback on a Samsung 50" DLP Just pop in a Dual Core AMD, Dual TV tuners, and go! Everything else is good. The Venice is a 2.2ghz single core processor, I've thought of upgrading to dual core, however the motherboard is old school. Its one of my BIGGEST Gripes/purchases about the system. I was talked out of/prodded to buy the AN8 like this one over a much better Gigabyte board being told it perform the same/etc. Another problem is I'm running 32-bit Vista Ultimate (which I got for free) instead of the 64 -bit, when I questioned the installer (good sized company) he said I shouldn't have any problems running it and wanted to stay away from the 64-bit due to software problems. So if I were to upgrade to a Dual Core, I'd want to upgrade to a better motherboard as well, which leads me to the why not just uprade to the much better processor and motherboard... http://www.uabit.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=48&page=1&model=259 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_racer1999 Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 whoa, upgrade to AT LEAST a dual core, get a 64 vista system up and running. BIG diff. what are you doing for cooling? if you're OC'ing your vid card and sealing the case in an enclosure, case temps are gonna get pretty hot. if it were me, i'd run a liquid cool system with an external radiator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tfreer85 Posted August 1, 2007 Author Share Posted August 1, 2007 whoa, upgrade to AT LEAST a dual core, get a 64 vista system up and running. BIG diff. what are you doing for cooling? if you're OC'ing your vid card and sealing the case in an enclosure, case temps are gonna get pretty hot. if it were me, i'd run a liquid cool system with an external radiator Well its going up for sale: $1825, minus the 500gig and the 40gig (both unpartioned). This is for my parts ALONE, no labor cost. The 300 gig with the Windows Vista is still included, not charging for the OS since I didn't pay for it. I have not overclocked yet and am not going too since I want to get rid of it, it has a 4.6 rating on Vista Perfomance Ratings, no problems, I just wish I would have gone with the faster setup to begin with. It hasn't had any heating issues at all. The new PC will be watercooled, I've been doing a lot of reading on overclockers.com on DIY water-cooling systems Thanks guys, Tyson PS. If anyone is interested PM me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_racer1999 Posted August 1, 2007 Share Posted August 1, 2007 if i had the money.... ...i would probably put it into the Z.... but if i had more money after that..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tfreer85 Posted August 1, 2007 Author Share Posted August 1, 2007 if i had the money.... ...i would probably put it into the Z.... but if i had more money after that..... Haha I understand, so I'm thinking craigslist, ebay, any other places you guys recommend? Thanks Tyson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woldson Posted August 1, 2007 Share Posted August 1, 2007 If interested, cable tv is about to change dramaticly. Do a search on open cable. The promise is you will now be able to buy a "cable ready" tv as well as cards for computers that will run all applications that a cable company can carry. The day of the stupid box is hopefully limited and will inspire compitition amoug hardware/software builders on the open market. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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