Hi guys,
I am looking at building my first HTPC really soon and wanted some advice about the hardware needed to run console / arcade emulation smoothly. I have a rough outline of hardware that I want:
Case: Moncaso 312 / 320 (no decided yet)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D2V microATX
CPU: Intel i3 or i5 (has to be able to fit into the case, not too noisy, but has to be able to run the last generation of consoles)
Memory: 8GB or though will see what the price difference is for 16GB
Graphics Card: Nvidia 430 low profile
Sound Card: Undecided yet, but it needs to be low profile.
TV Card: BlackGold 3600
Blu-Ray Writer: A short one that fits into this case.
Hard drives: 2x big hard drives if I can fit them in 2-3TB
PSU: Don't know yet, it depends on the power requirements of the other components.
I had to chose a discrete sound card because the motherboard doesn't include S/PDIF (TOSLINK) connection. Maybe there is a better motherboard choice..
I would like my HTPC to run quietly.
Questions:
Can I get away with an i5 processor in this case with out having too much noise and possibly heat coming from it? Conversely, is the top end i3 processor capable of running the last generation of consoles emulators?
Is there a better discrete graphics card that I could be using? I want the emulated games to run smoothly .
Thanks for any help.
Grant
I am looking at building my first HTPC really soon and wanted some advice about the hardware needed to run console / arcade emulation smoothly. I have a rough outline of hardware that I want:
Case: Moncaso 312 / 320 (no decided yet)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D2V microATX
CPU: Intel i3 or i5 (has to be able to fit into the case, not too noisy, but has to be able to run the last generation of consoles)
Memory: 8GB or though will see what the price difference is for 16GB
Graphics Card: Nvidia 430 low profile
Sound Card: Undecided yet, but it needs to be low profile.
TV Card: BlackGold 3600
Blu-Ray Writer: A short one that fits into this case.
Hard drives: 2x big hard drives if I can fit them in 2-3TB
PSU: Don't know yet, it depends on the power requirements of the other components.
I had to chose a discrete sound card because the motherboard doesn't include S/PDIF (TOSLINK) connection. Maybe there is a better motherboard choice..
I would like my HTPC to run quietly.
Questions:
Can I get away with an i5 processor in this case with out having too much noise and possibly heat coming from it? Conversely, is the top end i3 processor capable of running the last generation of consoles emulators?
Is there a better discrete graphics card that I could be using? I want the emulated games to run smoothly .
Thanks for any help.
Grant