3870K plans, but have some concerns..

The plan is to stuff the hardware into a silverstone ML02. 120w PSU. Goal: play anything I can throw at it... Bluerays, 3D content, and rips of all kind. Mild gaming is also wanted. (Have had A6-3500, but the system broke, and now I want a little extra).

The hardware I have thought of is:
A8-3870K
A75 chipset, haven't decied which brand/model yet. ITX or mATX
2x4gb 1866mhz memory

I have:
1x 3.5" Seagate 7200rpm 64mb drive, and a 2.5" 5400rpm drive. And will be connecting USBpowered harddrive once in a while.

My concern is that the a8-3870k is 100w TDP, and I can't seem to find any cpucoolers small enough to fit the case, and cool a 100w tdp processor?

My other concern is power consumtion.... Seems like a intel 65w tdp and discrete is a better option for me?? Performance wise, cooleroption, and powerconsumtion. Price is almost identical (3870k vs intel w. discrete 6570ish).
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pent...40-11.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/dis...70k_8.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/dis...html#sect0

And this guy (though I don't intent on any overclocking), but he has been forced to underclock his system just to use it
http://www.overclock.net/t/1240756/revie...k-a75m-itx <- is this caused by using a small ITX board?? Because there is room for a bigger motherboard in the silverstone ml02.

You should be fine with the 120w PSU for regular HTPC usages. If you stress the system, you will run into problem......you can always install this "Premium picoPSU-160-XT w/AC-DC 12V 192W 16A switching adapter" fanless PSU.......

When playing games, wouldn't the system be stressed?

(2012-05-11 21:39)LmmO Wrote:  When playing games, wouldn't the system be stressed?

That too.....especially when you do multi-task, such as playing game or watching movie while transcoding bluray file in the backaground....

No point of going for the 3870K if i'm not to use all of its power... :/