Computer guys, hardware recommendations?

[z31maniac]

^That's alright. I'd rather purchase an AMD than an Intel, the computers I built in high school and college I always used AMD.

It's just been so long since I've spec'd one out, I wanted some additional input.


Regarding my dual HD idea. Is there even going to be a difference between a 7200 and 10000 rpm HD as far as speed? IE, worth the cost? Or should I just double up on 1TB drives for mega-storage space, unless I'm willing to put the OS on a SSD.

[nando]

oh I should disclose I'm an AMD shareholder but I wasn't until after I built my last machine. ;)

[StereoInstaller1]

Oh, how big a power supply should I buy for all this?

BluRay, internet, all of that crap is just about zero stress to a modern PC: IF you aren't gonna be gaming with todays games, go for the quietest you can find, basically ignoring wattage.

[z31maniac]

Hahaha, that's what I was thinking but wanted to double check.

I'm going to go with that combo you posted up, add in 4gb of DDR3 1800 memory, and the few other things and go for it.

Hopefully I'll have it all put together and ready to go by the end of next week.

[nando]

well if you aren't running dual top-end video cards, 8 hard drives and a bunch of fans, 500w should be enough. :p

[z31maniac]

Hmmm, no I haven't. I'll look into that, but I'm assuming we do.

Alright so I'll look for a speedier smaller HD to run the OS off of, and a 1-2TB drive for storage.

Oh, how big a power supply should I buy for all this?

[StereoInstaller1]

buddy, have you checked your zip for ATSC DTV signal?

The picture is so damn good, it is just stunning, far better than the best cable can do. Limited programming, but WTF, its free.

I use a Happague Hybrid HVR1250. Since I am planning on 7, I have not done much with it, but it works fine, especially considering the $50 I spent on it.

[StereoInstaller1]

If I didn't have a brand new 1TB and 2 fresh 200GB SATAs for my 3 machines (I am SO ready for 7!) I would totally rock a SDD....hell, for heat reduction if anything!

[nando]

Not a bad idea. I run a 500gb with windows7 on it and a 1tb with all my movies etc. it's actually getting too small these days. Neither are the fastest on the market but I've never noticed the HDD being a bottleneck - they're fairly inexpensive WD "green" series drives. you could splurge on a SSD to load Windows off of, don't know how much better the performance is but there are several under $100 these days.

[StereoInstaller1]

Yeah, if you are gonna use that PC for storage, you wanna do an extra drive for storage.

Maybe even find a 32GB SSD for the OS

[z31maniac]

I'll most likely run two hard drives, a smaller faster one with the OS on it, then a BIG one for media/pics/music/etc.

Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Bad idea? Good idea? Should I do something different?

[z31maniac]

this combo would do everything you need
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.381162
you just need ram ($100), BD drive ($50) and storage ($100)

the board has optical out, so you can output it to a nice reciever and not lose anything in audio quality.

Thanks for the link!

That looks like it will be a nice powerful "core" to build a computer around.

Looking up the RAM/HD/etc now, going to try to make an order by the end of the day.

[TheEtaUnderdog]

Hey, lookit this! http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/24/p...me-theater-pc/

So my low-profile cards are NVidia 8300GS, according to the wiki, they are the absolute bottom card that supports VDPAU...but I am running le Windows and I do not care if my card supports unix...do I?

i know windows 7 supports vdpau out of the box. CoreAVC codec supports hardware acceleration on any version of windows

go grab that codec and ull have a windows box with hardware acceleration!

[StereoInstaller1]

This one comes with Asian girls: http://www.techfresh.net/pegatron-nv...owered-nettop/

[StereoInstaller1]

Hey, lookit this! http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/24/p...me-theater-pc/

So my low-profile cards are NVidia 8300GS, according to the wiki, they are the absolute bottom card that supports VDPAU...but I am running le Windows and I do not care if my card supports unix...do I?