[Mick1152]

First of all, huge thanks to eskro, Beer, bluray, and everybody else here, the information on these forums is great!

I've been lurking here for a few months now and have finally gotten around to pulling the trigger on building a HTPC.

It all started with Beer's build with the ISK 300-65 case. His build got me to finally say GIDDYUP I can do this! So, after 35 years on this earth and being the master of my domain I realized I'm in control and can do anything I goddamn want to! So, once I got permission from my wife, I started ordering some parts! Here's my final HTPC Specs:

Home Theater System
Silverstone ML03B $60
SeaSonic 380W Power Supply $57
ASRock A75M FM1 AMD A75 $75
AMD A8-3870K $104 ($119 - 15% off Coupon @ Newegg + a $15 gift card with purchase)
Crucial M4 64GB SSD $14 ($89 - Price Match to $79 (Amazon) - $25 Coupon - $44 Gift Card balance @ Staples)
BIG Shuriken 2 $48
Kingston HyperX 4GB Free! ($40 - $40 in Best Buy reward zone certificates through Best Buy marketplace)

Plus:
3 TB hard drive for MOVIES
2 TB hard drive for TV SHOWS, MUSIC, HOME VIDEOS, PICTURES, VIDEO GAME ROMS, and other media

System is designed to store my media internally so I can easily move it to my RV when I take the family on some road trips. The entire system is backed up to an unRAID server I built, which then serves all of my media to my bedroom HTPC (an A6-3500 "A6-Pack" system) and computers.

I've had my HTPC working hard transcoding all of my DVD and Blu-Ray rips to save space. For as long as possible I'd like to keep my entire library stored internally. With luck, my library will grow at the same rate HD capacity does and I can upgrade to a larger HD and move the one from my HTPC into my unRAID server.

[Beer40oz]

Nice ! Nice! why do A8? because it was on sale.....

Either way you have some nice rigs!

I guess you wanted the ML03B case so it can match the rest of your stuff?

Good stuff!

[eskro]

you did your homework my friend!

congratz!!

all chosen hardware is compatible and will make fantastic HTPC's!!

FTW!!

[Mick1152]

Thanks Beer and eskro!!!! You guys are super helpful and great motivators! I didn't want to hijack the other thread after you asked what I was building but goddamn I was excited to post what I'm doing!

The A8 vs A6 was solely because it was on sale when I went to order the second one, otherwise I would have stuck with the A6 for both builds to be completely honest. There was still a price difference but with micro-ATX board being cheaper than the mini-ITX board it was pretty much a wash so I went with it.

I switched to the ML03B case once I decided I was going to have two systems. It has more room so I can have my blu-ray drive, SSD and 3.5" hard drive in it without worries. Plus I think it looks better on the shelves with the other components than the small Antec case did. I did find a nice bracket to mount my slim, slot load blu-ray drive in the larger 5.25" drive bay which gives room for a 3.5" hard drive under it too. Ordered one of these for it now http://3btech.net/bydrbaytrbrm.html.

Since my NAS currently doesn't have redundant drives I am going to just back up my local library to my NAS so I'll have the redundancy if something happens. Plus I can access my library from the NAS on other systems in the house to get content when needed. My home network isn't the fastest thing in the world and I'm not smart enough to figure out where the weak link is. Not sure if it is my home built NAS or if I did a crappy job running the cables under the house and crimping the connectors on so I figure it's best just to keep the content local for now. I may change that once I have it all built and can really test streaming some blu-ray rips.

[bluray]

The A8-3850 for 94 bucks is excellent price. You'll enjoy both builds.....I bet that you'll spend more time on the A8-3850 than A6-3500......

[eskro]

all good to me