Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler What do you guys think about this HTPC case?

http://www.directron.com/x232.html

Ahanix cases are normally pretty expensive without silent psu's and fans.

You have a PM Randy.

I like it, I've ordered from Directron several times as well without any trouble.

I like it. It seems like a good value. However, I think that Ahanix cases use non-ISA power supplies, but that you can get some kind of adapter if you want to use a standard one.

Guess I'm not sure what non-ISA refers to? The website says it is a Standard ATX PSU. I know Ahanix is one of the most popular cases for HTPC's.

Ok, I just bought the case from Directron, seemed like an awesome deal once I checked other websites like Newegg and ZipZoomFly.

Now for the next questions...

I'd like some suggestions on good motherboards. In the past I've used MSI and Biostar, but for this HTPC project, I don't want to overlook anything. I've been searching Newegg and other websites and just can't decide. I'm planning on a Socket 939 setup for now, but am open to any feedback.

I just purchased the D4 from Directron which comes with two silent fans and Silent 350 CPU. http://www.directron.com/x232.html I think the sale price is pretty good.

I'm a little confused on all the various chipsets available (6100, 6150, nforce4, etc.) I assume this is just the onboard video that comes with the motherboard? I plan on getting at least an Nvidia 6600GT or higher, so I suppose the onboard video doesn't apply?

Also, I plan on using SPDIF out to my Denon 2805 AVR. Is it best just to find a motherboard with SPDIF out, or actually get a seperate sound card?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Randy

If you will only use that HTPC to play movies then a motherboard with SPDIF is good enough since the sound would be sent straight through to your receiver. No need for any bells and whistles really.

Now if you want to have bit perfect music playback then you will have to watch out since a lot of motherboards/sound cards will resample output PCM at 48Hz and higher instead of the usual 44.1Hz sampling rate, which will degrade the sound quality.

I think I will most likely use it for DVD movie playback, as I have a Sony Carousel for CD playback. I may also save MP3/WMA etc. to a hard drive, so if that matters let me know...Randy

Since you will have a separate CD player I don't think that it would matter, the sound quality then would mostly depend on how you encoded your mp3/WMAs.

The bottom line is that for audio you want a card that can output at a sample rate of 44.1Hz IF you don't want to lose some sound quality due to the resampling. But honestly it doesn't make much of a difference to me (except for DVDAs and Super CDs). I already have most of my CDs ripped in my PC and they sound good enough to me! I'm sure some people might disagree and I hope they'll chime in.
It's really up to you; how do MP3 rips of your music sound to you?

Bottom line if you will use this rig for movies and ripped CDs then I think you would be fine with whatever you chose (onboard sound w/ SPDIF, sound card).

Well I think I've narrowed down the following list for my HTPC.

Case: Ahanix D4


Gigabyte Motherboard GA-K8NF-9


Gigabyte GV-NX66T128D-SP Nvidia 6600GT Passive Cooled


CORSAIR 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Memory


AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz HT 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor E6 (very overclockable)


WD Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive (for O/S)

Looks good to me! I wish they made that video card in an AGP version...

All good, except I think you should get a hard drive that won't die of dust contamination in the first few hours...

You give it hours? I give that seconds.

All look like good choices to me... I'm running MCE 2005 on a 6600GT and a HT P4 @ 3Ghz and its great. The Abit mobo I use has SPDIF ins and outs right on the board and I think the sound from movies (DVDs) and music sounds supurb.

Now if they wouldn't have moved Vista back till 2007 grrrrr...

FYI to my knowledge the only passively cooled 6600's are the PCIe version because they use an extra chip on the AGP ones and it generates extra heat and requires a fan... that said the one shown above really looks like a great passvie cooling solution.

Well all of my supplies arrived, I was a bit baffled that when you order a SATA drive and/or Motherboard, the SATA cables don't come with the items. Now I have to run out to CompUSA or BestBuy to get some cables.

Also, the Grease for the processor did not come in the box with the processor/fan/heatsink, not sure if that is normal.

Isn't there some bundled with your mobo? When I got my Asus M/B it came with 4!

I'll check again when I get home in a few, I opened up the box quickly this morning, but didn't look real closely. Thanks

they should be in your mobo box.
as for the cpu if it is a retail box cpu if it does not come with cooling gel then it probably has a pad already on the heatsink.

Yep and Yep

The HD Sata cables were in the MB box. Also since it was a In-Box Athlon64 kit, I do believe the heatsink has the thermal pad. I was reading on AMD's website and the 64/FX/etc.. use the thermal pads versus paste.

I overclock using the retail (provided) heatsinks and whatever comes on them. They work fine no worries.