Strong Enough HTPC for $492,46 ??

Lower the CPU keep the 5450 add a seperate os drive..

CPU is overkill
5450 is great, but 512 meg version would work just as well
Get a 'green' 1.5 or 2tb drive and a 32gb SSD as your OS drive.
Mobo is overkill since you're gonna use a discrete vid
4gb mem is overkill, get 2gb instead

Don't forget to price in: Tuner(s), wireless keyboard/mouse, and a remote.

lower the cpu means less heat and since u have a dedicated video you dont need a strong cpu... seperate os drive because it will allow to perform better, windows can be read and written to while ur watch or ripping and what not. Last night i watched my rip of how to train your dragon while ripping speed racer, with zero issues, the other thing is you can get a smaller GB hard drive with a Higher Rpm and that will allow the programs like media center and wat not to perform a bit better... I have a amd athlon 250 core with an 5450 and can do everything you just described but my cpu uses 45w...

u dont have to go SSD just get a 7200 or better with like 200 gigs or less. and for the media drive us a WD green like 1-2tb, those can be 5400 rpm

You can get this Seagate Barracuda LP 2 TB 5900RPM SATA 3 GB/s 32 MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive ST32000542AS-Bare Drive for less than the 1 GB $69.99 at Amazon and some others. I know it's 5900 rpm, but you will not notice the difference when you are watching vids.

You do not need seperate drives.

I too would recommend a dual core, like a Athlon II X2 245e. You could go with a Athlon II X2 245 as well but the "e" version should run a little more cool and energy efficient.

I agree with you on purchasing 4gig of memory. It's dumb to buy 2 x 1gig sticks when they are basically outdated before you even get them. The other option is to buy 1x2gig stick and then get a matching one later but only if you absolutely can't afford the extra stick now.

Biostar seems to do OK for cheap motherboards.

I have been using shopbot.ca to find the best deals and then using NCIX since they have a price match right on the shopping cart. Too bad NCIX opened an Ontario store because they now charge for PST where before I would save 8%. It was great price matching to say Tigerdirect.ca or Newegg.ca and then also saving the 8% on top of the price match.

Peter

you dont need to a SSD, i went with a 200gb 7200rpm WD drive for the os and music, and 2tb green drive for media, works great so far. and all of my wd drives have a 3 yr manf. warranty

media can be 5400 rpm to save money...

cache really won't matter. You can get the 45w Athlon x4 for about the same price, save power and reduce heat.

I just bought one yesterday, think it was $115 or around that. It included the heatsink and fan.

Geeze, a 2TB 5400rpm Green drive will have better performance than an old model 200gig 7200rpm drive. My 2T green drives kick the crap out of my older 500gig WD drives. And a 200gig WD drive would probably perform even worse than my 500gig drives.

It makes no sense at all to buy a 1T 7200rpm drive with the current 2T Green drive performance and prices.

Why waste any money on an outdated small 7200rpm drive???? You won't be doing OS type stuff when you are playing a media file, you will be sitting there watching the TV.

I have a 320gig, 2.5" laptop drive in my HTPC and my HTPC works fine with it. I haven't done any speed tests but I'm believing it's a pretty slow drive. I bought that drive because it was much cheaper than a SSD and would run cooler and quieter than a 3.5" HDD and I also wanted space for torrents. I've moved to using usenet on my unRAID server and now I would not buy that drive again today. I run dual displays and multi-task with my HTPC all the time and don't have any issues with playback.

Peter

Go with an i3. Remove the discrete video card as it is not needed with an i3.

Oh, that sucks. i3 on sale now for $99 shipped.

do not go with i3, it has a 24hz hiccup.... and sence u have blu ray/1080p rips that would annoy the heck out of me...

Yes, grab a 2T WD Green, Seagate LP or Samsung F4 drive and quit worrying. You should be able to find all of them for <$90. I see newegg.ca is listing $105+ for those drives which is BS. NCIX has the WD for $90 and the Seagate for $80.

Seriously, if you're in Canada then shopbot.ca is your friend.

Peter

You're welcome.

Shopping around will save you money. I know you can do better on the processor, HDD and get a cheaper 512meg graphics card (likely $30) by going elsewhere. But then the motherboard would have to change or be price matched since that seems to be a good deal. I personally find the site that has most of it the cheapest and then price match the rest there so I don't pay shipping twice.

redflagdeals.com is another recommended shopping site but I always find it cumbersome to use.

Peter

Does Newegg price match?

When I use NCIX at the start of the check out I select the products then click start price match and then I can put the link and competitor price. They then email that it is accepted. I haven't had one turned down yet. Newegg probably does something similar.

Peter