Gaming rig & htpc, good idea?

I am getting ready to build my second htpc. My first box it running great, I'm just finished switching it to XBMCbunto and loving it. The second will be hooked up to a 46" lcd. I am considering building a machine that would play world or warcraft and the soon to be released Diablo 3 in addition to primarily playing 1080p rips. Unfortunately that would mean investing in a Windows license... something I am against.

Any thoughts from the community? Is this a bad idea? Where would I need to beef up the machine? GT430 still the way to go?


Thanks for the advice.

You might consider looking into A8-3850 to see if it'll play WoW at your settings.Then you would not need a discrete card. The internal GPU is considered somewhere between a HD5570 and HD6450 for performance. I would guess there's a lot of information in the forums of the games you want to play too.

A8-3850 is also a really good HTPC chip.

Upon some looking at the wow forums they seem to be recommending more powerful gpus.. something like the Radeon 6870 or GeForce 560... and CPU: i5-2300...

My question now, will this be super loud? Obviously this will be way more than enough power under the hood for xbmc.

(2012-04-11 17:37)Andro Wrote:  I am getting ready to build my second htpc. My first box it running great, I'm just finished switching it to XBMCbunto and loving it. The second will be hooked up to a 46" lcd. I am considering building a machine that would play world or warcraft and the soon to be released Diablo 3 in addition to primarily playing 1080p rips. Unfortunately that would mean investing in a Windows license... something I am against.

Any thoughts from the community? Is this a bad idea? Where would I need to beef up the machine? GT430 still the way to go?


Thanks for the advice.

It may be a little overkill for running WoW specifically, but i run my HTPC as my primary gaming rig hooked to a tv of the same size as yours. My specs are below (done from memory so i may not have the model numbers for everything):

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500k
Ram: 8GB Corsair
Mobo: Asus P8 Motherboard (don't have the exact number but i can look if you want)
Primary Drive: OCZ Vertex2 60gb SSD (OS/XBMC)
Secondary Drive: WD 2TB Caviar Green (Game installs)
Video: Zotac Geforce 560TI OC
Case: Antec Micro ATX (can't remember model name)

This rig runs pretty much everything i can throw at it (i don't play a ton of FPS, but it has recently ran both Reckoning and Mass Effect 3 with everything cranked all the way up, as well as the PCSX2 and Dolphin emulators with the upscaling set to 1080p 4x msaa), with the CPU software overclocked to 3.5 ghz using Asus's built-in tuning tool. I'm using stock cooling for everything, and it runs pretty quiet and never has heat issues. The only time i can hear the computer at all is when i'm running something specifically demanding of the videocard, and even then it's only a low hum from the GPU fan.

you should have your games on your SSD Ryoga79.
you want quick read times.

(2012-04-11 23:33)eskro Wrote:  you should have your games on your SSD Ryoga79.
you want quick read times.

I had thought about that, but my steam list has like 300 games on it, the drive isn't that big, and having to swap around installs/reload games from steam/etc just sounded like too much of a pain. Honestly, the load times on the 2TB aren't that bad at all. I've also got them all catalogued in advanced launcher, and the thought of having to do that all again gives me the jibblies. Maybe it's just the games i'm playing, but at least the two most recent (Reckoning and ME3) haven't been bad. Hell, on Reckoning they're barely noticeable.

I will have this problem soon, and will be a pain in the arse due to my love of the Total War series (Shogun 2 = 27 gigs and that's without the new "DLC" ). There are programs like http://www.stefanjones.ca/steam/ and http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover that seem to be made for just this purpose, would suggest looking into those to have the one that you are less likely to play on a larger mechanical drives and your favourites on the ssd.

(2012-04-12 19:24)reksveks Wrote:  I will have this problem soon, and will be a pain in the arse due to my love of the Total War series (Shogun 2 = 27 gigs and that's without the new "DLC" ). There are programs like http://www.stefanjones.ca/steam/ and http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover that seem to be made for just this purpose, would suggest looking into those to have the one that you are less likely to play on a larger mechanical drives and your favourites on the ssd.

I wish there was a way that i could automate this with a system task. My goal for the HTPC is to never have to drop to desktop if i can avoid it (it's in my living room and doesn't have a keyboard/mouse hooked to it). Like, for example if a game gets loaded that isn't on the C drive, it caches it from D to C. Then later on a daily check is made that if a game hasn't been launched in X days, move it from C back to D, or something like that.

(2012-04-12 20:20)Ryoga79 Wrote:  I wish there was a way that i could automate this with a system task. My goal for the HTPC is to never have to drop to desktop if i can avoid it (it's in my living room and doesn't have a keyboard/mouse hooked to it). Like, for example if a game gets loaded that isn't on the C drive, it caches it from D to C. Then later on a daily check is made that if a game hasn't been launched in X days, move it from C back to D, or something like that.

Although I plan to have a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, i think that would be pretty slick way of deciding the location of each games location, might look into whether there is any workaround.

@Andro, I am not sure how much a rush you are in but I assume or hope that the prices for the sandy-bridge cpu should fall with the upcoming release of the ivy-bridge cpu.

(2012-04-12 20:44)reksveks Wrote:  Although I plan to have a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, i think that would be pretty slick way of deciding the location of each games location, might look into whether there is any workaround.

Yeah, i have a USB keyboard/mouse sitting in a drawer in the same room, hopefully to gather dust. I'm looking into getting one of these soon:

http://www.amazon.com/FAVI-Entertainment...885&sr=8-1

Especially since the price just dropped.

I've also got a nostromo speedpad and trackball if i get the urge to RTS/FPS, which can be connected to a USB hub that's hidden under the couch