Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler New HTPC/Gaming Rig Build

So here's the current part list of the machine I'm building for my living room. Its primary use will be media playback, and gaming.

It started with me seeing that SilverStone had announced a new Mini-ITX case, the Raven RVZ01. I knew I wanted to build a machine using that.

So I found a Mini-ITX motherboard. I had never used a Asus board in a machine for myself, but I've been impressed with their stuff for a long time, so I figured I'd give the Z87I-Deluxe a shot.

When I was initially planning this build, I was going to try to go cheap, and use a Core i5 CPU, but cheap started to go out the window, so I moved up to an i7. There's really only one i7 chip available to consumers, the 4770. Though there is also a clock-unlocked version for a few dollars more. So I figured what the heck, and will be using the Core i7 4770K processor.

Some more SilverStone stuff to fill up the case:
Power supply: ST45SF-G (I hope 450 Watts is enough, as it's hard to find SFX style PSUs bigger than that).
Short, modular cable set: PP05-E
CPU heat sink: NT06-PRO (I've heard this is a real bear to install, but blood sacrifices make computers run well).
Slot load, BD burner: SOB02

I'm going with SSDs for the main storage. Yes, plural. I'll be using three 240GB Intel SSD 530 Series in a RAID0 stripe set (720 GB total). This should get me about 1.6 GB/s read performance. (This is where cheap left the planet.)

Because I know better than to trust an SSD (even in Intel one), and striped drives are playing with fire (if even one disk fails the whole set becomes unreadable). I'm going to put a Seagate ST4000DM000 (their site is all HTML5/AJAX, and you can't link to individual drives any more), 4TB low-power, spinning disk in for backups, and storage of larger files.

I'm still not sure what video card or RAM I'm going with. I'd like to use a GeForce GTX 760, but the minimum recommended PSU is 500 Watts. I'll probably risk it, because the rest of the system doesn't seem to be too power hungry. For the RAM I want something that's DDR 1866, and CL 9, probably Crucial or G.Skill. But I've got to see what clearance I have with that CPU cooler. I think there's no overlap between the DIMM slots and the radiator, but have to see it in person before I order anything.

Nice.

You're crazed.

I like Silverstone cases.

Sounds like a great system. Windows 8.1?

I'm going to try out SteamOS, but also probably end up with Win 8.1 on it.

Is steam multi-boot friendly?

Not at this point (it is planned before it's out of beta), but I know my way around a boot loader well enough that I can manage.

Great list of components. I'd like to build a completely new PC this year, but realistically, I'll probably simply update certain components (case, motherboard, CPU, RAM, video card) and transfer pieces out of this one (hard drives, BD and DVD drives, PSU).

I mainly want a new case and video card. The case I have right now is a fairly tall tower, so I'd like something that looks more appropriate in my component rack. I'm still leaning toward this one: Cooler Master HAF XB EVO

I don't really have any experience with Cooler Master, and I've been happy with Antec, so we'll see what options are out there when I finally do set aside the funds.

I'll wait until Steam Machines are out and doing damage before upgrading my video card. I'll probably straddle mid-range and high-end.

I was shocked that this case could hold a full-length, double-slot video card. Of course the card takes up 1/3 of the case's volume, and almost half its width.

I've not touched a Cooler Master case, but from reading they seem to be a little bit on the cheap side, construction wise (right there with SilverStone) but nothing horrible. As long as they case isn't trying to do anything "innovative" with the cooling (no radiator sides, or liquid cooling) they're fine.

I have a coolermaster mid tower and a corsair mid tower and both are recent acquisitions in the past cuple years and the Corsair is good quality though the extra usb connectors etc are pure garbage. The CoolerMaster is by far the better case. I was really considering putting my HTPC into a Silverstone after I saw the one Nick used. I thought it would look good in the Entertainment center , much like other highend equipment. Sadly I have no room for anything more so the tower will be hiding behind my speaker. Those cases you and Nick are using are really nice but I worry about the heat. The case Cv linked to is a different twist for sure, but it would have to hide in a closet or something,not really decorative .

I'm used to server-class cases from Supermicro, just about every enthusiast case seems a bit cheap compared to that. Though some of the nicer Antec cases aren't too bad.

I mean look at this thing: http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/747/SC747TQ-R1620.cfm

62 lbs?? Woah..

You'd get quite a workout carrying that to LAN parties.

Fair enough but I thought this thread was in the context of hometheater with emphasis on home. An F350 is a big strong truck but its no Kenworth. A Kenworth isn't practical for daily use nor is that case imho. Just sayin

Richard

Well, I drive Kenworths (Supermicro) for work, and even park my own in my driveway (bedroom), so when I pick up an F350 (SilverStone) for a bit of play I do feel it is a bit lacking in comparison But yeah, I get what you're saying. Though, if I could get a smaller, quieter Kenworth, I'd totally park it in my living room too.

Quiet is the important part for me. Its not like I am going to stand on top of my computer to put up pictures . I cheaped out on the power supply when I built my htpc and now I have to find another , hopefully quieter.

Settled on the RAM. In order to get (nearly) the clocking speed I wanted, the memory had to have a heat spreader. In order to fit under the CPU heat-sink/fan it would have to be low-profile. I think the only RAM that fits those requirements is Crucial's Ballistix Tactical LP. I would have liked to have it clocked as DDR3-1866, but that wasn't available. So I went with the 1600, and got a bit better latency in trade. Since these are 1.35 Volt parts, I might be able to up the power a little, and increase the latency and over clock to 1866. But then again, 1600 isn't anything to scoff at.

Well, so much for going with that big heat sink cooler. It just isn't going to fit. It bumps into the voltage regulators on one side of the board, and the USB 3.0 front panel cable on the other.

So for now I'll be using the stock CPU cooler, and taking the PWM fan from that heat sink and mounting it on the top of the case. So it'll blow down on the CPU's fan, that's blowing on the heat sink.

Where will the air exit? An exit strategy is of equal importance to the input air.

That's all I got. Did I sound impressive? Actually it sounds like you have things well planned and working out nicely. There is always one gotcha so you are doing good.

The whole case is Swiss cheese. It's designed to be pressurized by the intake fans, which have fine mesh filters on them, and then the air can blow out through the sides and back.

So, it's probably not super silent, then?

I've not run it with the cover on, heck I've not run it with RAM installed, so it's just the default fan speed. Still it's basically in audible from three feet away. Well, a bit of a rushing air sound, but the fans are cranked up way higher than needed. I think it's going to be pretty much silent once I turn them down.

Getting that thing up to ramming speed should take out a small destroyer!

I was worried for a bit when I got into the UEFI (BIOS), I couldn't turn the fan down below 60% duty cycle, and the CPU fan that is now handling they case was vary audible even at that speed.

But I installed Windows 8.1 (without a key for now, still not sure if I'll buy it) and added the Asus utilities. OK, the Fan Xpert 2 is awesome! It mapped the fan's duty cycle vs. cooling and let me slow them down a lot more than the UEFI settings would allow. Now everything is peaceful.

I'm also looking at slowing down the Bitfenix case fan i bought for my new rig. There is a dial on the case itself, but i think the fan is still running louder/faster than it needs to. Mind you, i'm using the top fan port so it's also possible the noise is just more audible as in the past i've used front and back fan ports.
I'm going to play around with the location and in doing so, close off the top fan port with (non glued) acoustic material as well.
Other than that, i have a fairly silent system.

Here's the specs (purchased pre-Christmas during early sales):

Intel Core i5 4670K Unlocked Haswell Quad Core 3.4GHZ Processor LGA1150 6MB Cache Retail

ASUS Z87-PRO ATX LGA1150 Z87 DDR3 3PCI-E16 4PCI-E1 CrossFireX/SLI SATA3 USB3.0 DVI HDMI

Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H80I CPU Cooler System LGA1150 1155 1156 1366 2011 AM2 AM3 FM1 FM2

Patriot Viper 3 16GB 2X8GB PC3-12800 DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24 1.5V Dual Channel Memory Kit - Black Mamba

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5IN Dual Proc Hard Drive OEM (storage drive)

Samsung SSD 840 Pro - 128GB (my system drive)

MSI GeForce GTX 760 Hawk Twin Frozr IV 1111/1176MHZ 2GB 6GHZ GDDR5 DP HDMI 2DVI PCI-E 3.0

LG GH24NSB0 DVD-RW 24X SATA Black OEM

Corsair Graphite Series 600T Special Edition White Mid-Tower Case ATX 4X5.25 6X3.5INT USB 1394

Seasonic X Series 750W KM2 ATX 12V 24PIN 80PLUS Gold Fully Modular DC-DC Power Supply w/ Hybrid Fan