[RENITSRUB]

Hi,

I'm planning on building the following:

Case: Antec Fusion Remote Max

Motherboard: Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 265

Cooler: Zalman CNPS8000A

Power Supply: Startech 400 Watt Silent

RAM: Crucial DDR3 PC3-8500 CL7 (4Gb)

Tuner: Avermedia AVerTVHD Duet (White Box)

Blu-ray Drive: Pioneer BDR-206DBK

Hard Drive 1: WDBAAY0010HNC-NRSN (1TB)

Hard Drive 2: WDBAAY0020HNC-NRSN (2TB)

System: Windows 7 Home Premium (OEM)

Software: Cyberlink PowerDVD11


I have no interest in gaming or overclocking. All broadcast reception will be OTA. I can do all my initial setup using the keyboard and mouse from my present computer, and plan to use only the Antec remote once I've installed the unit in my home theater, which is why I don't have these items included above. I'm also planning on using a Medialink Wireless N USB Adapter to get software updates, once the unit is installed. Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[jrwalte]

I'd go with a cheaper case and use the money to buy a ~60GB SSD. Having used both PowerDVD and TMT5, I prefer TMT5. It's been more stable within 7MC.

 

[RENITSRUB]

As far as the case is concerned, I want a full ATX case with remote, and the Antec seems to be the only one around. For the DVD11 vs. the TMT5, it seems as if nobody but Arcsoft is seelling TMT5 (at $99.99) vs. a best price of $81.47 for the Cyberlink. Is TMT5 worth the difference in price? I've spent the past few hours researching SSD's, which I thought sounded like a good idea, but there seem to be a lot of reliability complaints out there, pointing to a typical life span of about 18 months for most 30 & 60 Gb drives from several manufacturers.

 

[MlNDBOMB]

have you thought of paying a little more for an athlon x4 640?

 

[RENITSRUB]

The 265 runs at 3.3 Ghz and pulls only 65W, whereas the 640 runs at only 3.0 Ghz and pulls 95 watts. For my intended use, I don't see any advantage of having the 2 extra cores, and since I want as quiet a unit as possible, I don't want to increase fan operation to dissipate the additional 30 watts.

 

[MlNDBOMB]

how do you plan on hooking that up to your receiver, through hdmi?


you may be better of with something from intel or an AMD A6 then, because they have hd audio ability.