HTPC Overhaul - Need Parts Recommendations!

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:01 am

I'll probably go with the 8800GT. ATI's been crap lately. (Or maybe just Visiontek, the company that made the HD 2600 Pro AGP card.)

A 2-slot board should be quieter than a one-slot, right? (Bigger fan = more air pushed with less noise?)

Rekarp · Post by **Rekarp** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:27 am

bicostp wrote:I'll probably go with the 8800GT. ATI's been crap lately. (Or maybe just Visiontek, the company that made the HD 2600 Pro AGP card.)

A 2-slot board should be quieter than a one-slot, right? (Bigger fan = more air pushed with less noise?)

correct.

The new ATi cards are actually really nice so they are making a come back.

Bay_Wolf · Post by **Bay_Wolf** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:44 pm

I would still be open to ATI with their new HD4800 series. Just check out some reviews about it and you'll see why. Good Luck.

Regards,
Bay_wolf.

ZN13 · Post by **ZN13** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 9:49 pm

<b>Bic</b>, might I suggest this?

Post by **bicostp** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 6:21 pm

Just keeping up on prices, and I noticed Tiger Direct has the same motherboard bundled with either a Q6600 2.4 or an E8400 3.0 for the same price. The only difference is the C2Q is an OEM chip, and thus doesn't come with a CPU cooler.

Keeping in mind what this thing's going to be used for (media, games, transcoding videos for its archive), is the extra expense and effort of getting a CPU cooler worth the performance and longevity differences between the Duo and Quad? (Most of the programs it will normally run will most likely be single-threaded, and it won't be running a 64 bit OS for a while.)

EDIT: Looks like the existing PSU isn't up to snuff as far as decent graphics cards go.

How does this one look?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=1483