2011-01-28, 00:58
Hi,
I'm looking to upgrade my bedroom HTPC. It's over 5 years old, so old the MB battery has run out!
Anyway, it's got a 2.7ghz Athlon and a passive cooled Radeon that is DXVA capable. It plays all 1080p clips no problem but struggles with some DVD box transitions on the nicer skins and is far from silent. I used to run CAD on it a while back and now I may have a need to run Solidworks on it again. It wouldn't need to be a CAD powerhouse as I use CAD all day at work and would only need to use it for CAD occasionally. It would just need to have room to install a full size graphics card and at least 4GB of RAM.
Can anyone tell me what the most capable (almost) silent PC I could get for a reasonable, say under £500 price is. Or would I be better off just upgrading my laptop for CAD and grabbing an Apple TV 2 or Revo 3700?
The priority would be the lack of noise as we don't like having to turn up the tv to drown out fan noise when our 3 year old daughter is asleep in the next room.
I'm looking to upgrade my bedroom HTPC. It's over 5 years old, so old the MB battery has run out!
Anyway, it's got a 2.7ghz Athlon and a passive cooled Radeon that is DXVA capable. It plays all 1080p clips no problem but struggles with some DVD box transitions on the nicer skins and is far from silent. I used to run CAD on it a while back and now I may have a need to run Solidworks on it again. It wouldn't need to be a CAD powerhouse as I use CAD all day at work and would only need to use it for CAD occasionally. It would just need to have room to install a full size graphics card and at least 4GB of RAM.Can anyone tell me what the most capable (almost) silent PC I could get for a reasonable, say under £500 price is. Or would I be better off just upgrading my laptop for CAD and grabbing an Apple TV 2 or Revo 3700?
The priority would be the lack of noise as we don't like having to turn up the tv to drown out fan noise when our 3 year old daughter is asleep in the next room.
