First time building HTPC and looking for some advice.

[Mr.Mellow]

Hi there.I started this topic in New Builds & Planning, but i found this sub forum and thought this would be a good place to ask as it's dedicated to Home Theatre.

I'm looking for some help about building a HTPC. I've never built a HTPC before and I'm looking for some help about picking parts.

I already have a graphics card, CPU and motherboard and thought that it's enough to get started and wanted to finally buy the other parts i'd need.
I live in Australia NSW so going through newegg, NCIX or Amazon are kind of out of the picture unless i can't get them products from the australian computer shops. I live in a Sub-tropical type area so it gets extremely hot and humid through summer and spring so i'm trying to keep the sound to a minimum as i don't want to really hear it while watching a movie or playing a game. I won't mind if it's like a gentle hum, but i don't want to hear loud fans and etc.

 

The parts I already have are: (i can add more detail about the cpu and motherboard if needed.
1155 i5 CPU
Asrock ATX motherboard
Gigabyte gtx 550Ti or asus HD6870
I have a 32inch TV screen

and the parts i think i want but not sure if they are any good.
Silverstone Grandia GD08 HTPC Case. Reason for this case is because the motherboard i already have is an ATX size and it was given to me for free so i decided to pick a case that would fit it and i know silverstone makes good cases so i thought this would be an awesome pick and has the ability to hold a lot of HDD's
NOISEBLOCKER NB eLoop B12-2. The reason i like these is because they look really nice. I know i won't be looking inside the case or you won't really see the fans but i'll be buying extra's to go into my main pc and I saw a PC builder/modder use them a lot so i thought they must be good. (i just don't want anything colourful or have LED's. White seems like they'd look really nice in this case and my main computer)

I'm not 100% on the power supply, I don't really know many good PSU's and I'm hoping someone can recommend me one that has quiet operation plus stable, preferably no LED's. 

I would also like a SSD for a bootable drive but I've never owned a SSD so i'm not what would be a good SSD for a HTPC
I'm not sure what would be a good amount of RAM for a htpc, I was thinking 4GB would be enough? I don't really know what separates certain ram from the other RAM except the coolers so i'd like to find some RAM that won't be to expensive but will work like a charm.
I also have no idea what sort of CPU cooler i should use, all i know if i want it to be good at cooling without being overly loud. I thought maybe a low profile but i think the case wouldn't really benefit from a Low Profile cooler.
I'm probably going to grab 2X 2TB HDD for storage and possibly run them in raid. Not sure what i should run them in (but i will into that on another section of the forum)
Then going to grab a Bluray optical drive. Don't really know if theres any real difference in optical drives but if anyone can recommend a good one, that would be helpful. ( Reason i wan't a Bluray optical drive is because i already a bluray player and have got quite a few blurays and i don't want to just waste them and downloading movies in bluray is out of the question here in Australia)
I'm also looking at a good way to operate this without needing a wired keyboard and mouse, i'm up for everything from remotes, wireless keyboard and mouse, all sort of connectivity.

 

 

Finally, i currently have a DVD/CD surround sound system. I've been connecting my computer and bluray player up to it and i'm considering buying an actual computer sound system to use for it, but i'm not really sure what what would be a good sound system for it.


Cheers for reading this long topic and I hope to hear from the community 

[Jetster]

What are you using it for?

If your not going to be gaming then ditch the gaming card. An HTPC should be quiet first off. You will need a PCI slot fan controller to slow your fans down. CPU fan with a 120mm fan that will fit. A silent PSU quality would be best. Silverstone, Corsair RM, Seasonic G550 all are good and quiet. As far as an SSD its a must in an HTPC. You only need a 120Gb unsets you will be gaming, But HTPCs make horrible gaming rigs, And Gaming rigs make horrible HTPCs.  

 

HTPC you wan to run all the time so low power is the idea. I5 not nectary but you can down clock it. A Pentium G will do nicely. You really don't even need a dedicated GPU

 

Raids is not needed but can be useful for redundancy. 7200 drive are fast enough. I tried Green drives but I don't like the hesitance that comes with them

 

Also for software look into XBMC. Its free open source media center that is awesome

 

I have two HTPC. One on a AMD APU set up with 6 Tb and an SSD to boot to. Then an Intel 1150 Pentium G3258 with no dedicated GPU that streams from the first systems hard drives via XBMC server. They both work great but I like the G3258 system the best, Boots faster and both are silent.

[Fgtfv567]

check out unified remote to control your PC! if you're not gunna game you can lower the specs and price

[Mr.Mellow]

Thanks for the replies for starters.
I will be doing some casual gaming. Mainly games i can play from sitting down on a couch. Nothing really intensive.

 

The whole reasoning with the ATX motherboard and i5 is that it was given to me by a friend for free because i upgraded his computer for him so the reasoning behind them is purely i have them on hand and I don't really have anyone to sell them to so i could buy a smaller motherboard and the Pentium.