2012-03-30, 18:44
After using my Dell XPS M1730 laptop as a XBMC media center for years, it finally died on me last week. I'm looking to put together an actual media center PC and based on reading multiple threads here and doing some research, I've settled on the following parts. Before I pull the trigger on this though, I wanted to post it up here and get any feedback people may have. I'm very comfortable with the selections I've made and have confirmed that everything should fit, to the best of my ability based on online measurements, but if anyone has any in-person experience with these parts, especially the case, feedback would be most appreciated.
Case (comes with 300 watt PSU):
This is the same as the PC-C37, except comes with a 300 watt PSU from Lian Li
LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-C37U Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
Motherboard:
ASUS F1A75-M PRO FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
CPU/GPU:
AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 6550D AD3850WNGXBOX
SSD:
OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Memory:
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ
CPU Cooler:
Scythe SCBSK-2100 120mm Sleeve BIG Shuriken 2 Rev. B CPU Cooler
I can pick up all of the above, shipped, for around $520 before rebates, after special discounts (that expire 3/31). I plan on adding a blu-ray drive to this later. I will also want to bitstream audio to a new receiver via HDMI at some point in the future, so I'm attempting to future proof the media center a bit.
Also, before anyone asks, I did look at the ASRock A75 Hudson D3 board that seems to be commonly recommended around here, but I'm nowhere near as familiar with ASRock as I am with Asus and have heard of some issues with their boards, so I settled on the slightly more expensive Asus motherboard.
Case (comes with 300 watt PSU):
This is the same as the PC-C37, except comes with a 300 watt PSU from Lian Li
LIAN LI Black Aluminum PC-C37U Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
Motherboard:
ASUS F1A75-M PRO FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
CPU/GPU:
AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 6550D AD3850WNGXBOX
SSD:
OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Memory:
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ
CPU Cooler:
Scythe SCBSK-2100 120mm Sleeve BIG Shuriken 2 Rev. B CPU Cooler
I can pick up all of the above, shipped, for around $520 before rebates, after special discounts (that expire 3/31). I plan on adding a blu-ray drive to this later. I will also want to bitstream audio to a new receiver via HDMI at some point in the future, so I'm attempting to future proof the media center a bit.
Also, before anyone asks, I did look at the ASRock A75 Hudson D3 board that seems to be commonly recommended around here, but I'm nowhere near as familiar with ASRock as I am with Asus and have heard of some issues with their boards, so I settled on the slightly more expensive Asus motherboard.
