HTPC and HAPC?

[kuronosan]

Looking to do a nice summer project - I want to build a rig that acts as my home theater system through MCE, complete with Blu-Ray burning (already have one picked out).

What kind of specs should I be aiming for to get good gaming performance and video performance without going overboard on heat and sound?

I also want to build a decent home audio rig for recording music as the latency on my USB Mbox is terrible even with ASIO.

Any advice? I'm definitely wanting to go Clarkdale because of the iGPU capability. I have some cases picked out too, I'm just unsure of the hardware.

P.S. Trying to stay under $1000 per rig.

[kareface]

Are you hooking this up to a nice home audio system? If you are you'll likely want to get a setup that can bitstream HD audio. Otherwise just about any video card that can carry audio over HDMI will work for you. If you plan to use it with an LCD you might consider getting a card compatible with reclock to set the frame rate to match the TV. Most of the newer ATI cards will do HD bitstreaming, some will work with reclock if you have the right drivers and most will work for gaming. I actually just rebuilt my HTPC, I didn't care about gaming but I wanted bitstreaming so I decided to go with a core i5 with the built in video processor and a h57 board from gigabyte. I'm actually waiting for a process to finish on it right now.

I use XBMC with my setup and wanted a computer that was a little faster about caching the background artwork and cover art for the movies so I also picked up a couple SSD's for a raid 0. It's nice, the computer boots up wicked fast and I can run the fans on my HTPC case pretty low and the system still works fine. If you have a chance you should check out XBMC, I really like the aeon and alaska skins and it works so much better than microsofts attempt at a HT interface.

[kuronosan]

Thanks, I'll look into it dude. I was wondering if anyone was going to reply at all.

[Caiyuo]

bump. Curious about the home audio PC as well since I'm still wondering what the important parts are here that factor into low-latency recording. Mostly what's involved when needing to load 15 or so tracks at once with plugins added. Live-monitoring recording processing seems to be almost entirely on the pre-amp/interface.

[kareface]

I can't help you there, sorry. I'm limited to home theater and home audio reproduction.

[kuronosan]

bump. Curious about the home audio PC as well since I'm still wondering what the important parts are here that factor into low-latency recording. Mostly what's involved when needing to load 15 or so tracks at once with plugins added. Live-monitoring recording processing seems to be almost entirely on the pre-amp/interface.

I've read that solid state drives and low cas memory work best with home audio and latency. Fast processor definitely.

So yea, rate my system's guts before I decide on the final parts:

EVGA X58 MATX board
i7 920 Bloomfield @ 2.66GHz
EVGA GTX 465
3x2GB CAS7 Corsair XMS3 RAM
HDD - undecided
Case - undecided
PSU - Corsair 850W PSU
Optics - LG BDR10X

What kind of changes should I make, if any, and what sort of micro-ATX cases or such would anyone recommend?

[Diabolos]

I just put the finishing touches on my htpc. Most of the hardware is just old Pc parts I had laying around. It's got an X2, geforce 7800, and 4 gigs of ram.

I'm using windows media center 7 as the primary hub that leads to live tv, photos, and netflix. I have an XBMC plugin, and I use that for movies, tv, and games. And I control it all using hippo remote for iphone