Widescreen Gaming Forum

I love you Skip, you're talking my lingo here, lemme throw a couple of solutions at you.

First off, your case constrains are brutal, and finding a desktop or HTPC style case at only 4.5" tall is gonna be one hell of a tall order. Here's an idea of what you're looking for however: NewEgg HTPC cases, the shortest ones are the Apevia models at I think it was 5.4" tall, but I suspect things will be supremely cramped. Either way, you're going to have look into giving this more room, especially to breathe.

PSUs are pretty much a dime a dozen, but I will say if you're going for quiet, SilverStone with a 120 or 140mm cooling fan will work perfectly as it'll be quiet and deliver the juice you need consistently (I've used SilverStone twice with fantastic results until I popped them myself with bad installs). Do not go for anything with an 80mm fan no matter how slow it spins, I cannot stress that enough.

If you're seeking just a Blu-Ray drive for reading purposes, brands to look at are specifically Toshiba and Sony (the creator of the format, and the former it's competitor with HD-DVD). Burners are whole 'nother realm that I have not dove too far into so I can't comment openly there.

RAM is easy. AMD Radeon DDR3-1600 16gb (2x8gb) is a perfect compliment.

I just recently built an A8 for a friend of mine with all AMD components like you're going here (A8, D3, and AMD-R ram), and she had no problems with compatibility, performance is top notch for the specs that she's got, and she couldn't be happier. She's coming from years of laptops so talking her into getting an actual PC that doesn't move around was a feat, but I was more than happy to help her pick out the machine for budget pricing. Overall she spent less than $500 total for the setup and it should last her another year or two before it's too depreciated for new games.

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Current build: Intel i5-4670k | 32GB DDR3 | RAID0 2x250GB 850EVOs | nVidia GTX980Ti (MSI G1 Gaming Edition) | SoundBlaster Zx | Dell 2405FPW (Landscape, primary) & HP w2338h (Portrait)

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/netz ... auschelei/

I know you don't speak German, but in short... this guy is ranting about PSU not reaching their declared performance. the las 15 PSU he tested only 7 did what they promised.
Whats the negative point of bigger PSUs? they cost more and they're bigger in Size.
There are even some Semi-passive (cant remember Brand, sorry) PSUs that only activate their Fan when they become to hot. but in case of efficiency, my Enermax MaxRevo 1500W beats everything around 170W powerdrain!
So if you have the space and money go for an high class PSU.


About RAM... well, there isnt anything you can do wrong^^ if the RAM doesnt work, RMA!
But because you're using a APU here make sure to get 1866er or higher! 2x8gb are fairly cheap nowadays.


and I have no idea about cases ^^ but do you intend to use an IR remote or Wireless mouse and Keyboard? Imho Smartphones are the way to go, when you have WiFi.
but thats only when you, or anyone else who uses it has a Smartphone alltime in the pocket.

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We gonna send it to outa space!

In regards to PSU performance, there is a standard set that you can look for called "80 PLUS". It's the measure of efficiency (from the wall) which is also a measure of the quality of the components, meaning higher quality, better able to fully deliver!

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Current build: Intel i5-4670k | 32GB DDR3 | RAID0 2x250GB 850EVOs | nVidia GTX980Ti (MSI G1 Gaming Edition) | SoundBlaster Zx | Dell 2405FPW (Landscape, primary) & HP w2338h (Portrait)

which is exactly what this guy was ranting about! That PSU sent to the certification was another revision than the one being sold in the store afterwards... they called this a "contract manufacturere error" and blamed them!

Check out the diagrams here: http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/netz ... 50-400w/6/
80+ as if...

And if you think you buy a small 150W PSU..... don't even think about draining 150W !
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/netz ... im-test/4/

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We gonna send it to outa space!

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm not really worried about playing Skyrim on it. This is more for my kids, and the games they would play.

I found this case on NewEgg (where I was already looking).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811121100

It is 4" tall and just under 14" wide. So it should fit fine, and already comes with a 300W power supply. All for $60. It only accepts Micro-ATX motherboards. For the price of the case+PSU, I'd spend the money on the new motherboard.

In all there are a few here that are under 4" and have a PSU. Since I'm only going for the APU with no external GPU, I figure these are good enough. And bring the build cost way down.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=

If I am going to look at Blu-Ray support, what do you recommend for playback software? I tried using AnyDVD from Slysoft and VLC, but it was less than 1fps. When I look at most of the commercial playback software, it alone is $50 - $75. A cheap mini BD player is only $80. We don't want disks often, but I do have the HP, LOTR, Star Wars and James Bond collections. Rather than moving the whole HTPC, I could just move the mini BD when I needed.

Without the Blu-Ray I'm at a recommended PSU wattage of 176W. If I dropped to the ITX motherboard (and hopped I didn't get a DOA one), I could use this case from Lian-Li - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811112361

Also, looks like I could go with an A75 board (which had better rating), as the differences to A85X are minimal - http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/46005 ... inity-apu/

In terms of cheap/free blu-ray software, I haven't come across anything that is good and I seriously mean that. I think in recent times I've tried about 10 which either never work or as you say aren't up to much.

Are you thinking you want this to be quiet? so no HDD and go with SSD?

No Fan and going with a passive heatsink?

What are your plans for that side of things?

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i7 3770K (Ivy bridge) | Corsair Dominator 32GB | Asus P8Z77-V LE Plus Intel Z77 | Corsair H100i | 2 x Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 in crossfire | NXZT Phantom case | OCZ 1000W Powersupply | Samsung 840 PRO 256GB | 2x OCZ agility 3 60GB SSDs | 2x 1TB HDDs |

I'm not going for silent. I'd like to get something quieter than my Xbox360 or PS3.

The TDP on the A10-6800K is 95W. Not much you can do fanless with that. The PSU on the Lian-Li case is a "micro-ATX" power supply. I think it will be pretty quiet. I am going with just a 240GB SSD, so no spinning drive. With no blu-ray, all i will have is a couple of fans.

My big rig is pretty quiet with huge CPU fansink and 1100W power supply. The GPU is the only thing that is loud.

I guess you could go for stock fan and if it's too loud replace it with a silent one... there are plenty of options if it's "too" loud.

Ye I find with mine that the real noise is GPU nothing else the main thing you can here on mine when not playing games is the pump on the H100i but that's more of a dull humm that "loud"

I wouldn't say don't get a BR drive I just think PC software for BR is shocking!

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i7 3770K (Ivy bridge) | Corsair Dominator 32GB | Asus P8Z77-V LE Plus Intel Z77 | Corsair H100i | 2 x Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 in crossfire | NXZT Phantom case | OCZ 1000W Powersupply | Samsung 840 PRO 256GB | 2x OCZ agility 3 60GB SSDs | 2x 1TB HDDs |

For BD playback on my living room HTPC, I use AnyDVD HD to automatically decrypt the discs in the background and just click Play Disc from the main menu of XBMC to go straight to the movie. Works great.

I also have ArcSoft TMT, which is what I would recommend among the commercial/shareware offerings. Of course, since the discs are decrypted any player capable of reading the video files can play the movies. My favorite player is MPC-HC, which plays BD streams just fine.

A dedicated set top player would be cheaper, but having Blu-ray playback integrated into the HTPC is awesome. I consider my purchase of AnyDVD to be worth every penny.

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

I've got a Deepcool Beta 400 ST on my current board. http://www.deepcool-us.com/Product/BETA400_ST/ The depth of the board to the top of the fan is about 3.5". If that's too tall, I can get a low profile fan. I know there are many about.

If there's no good BD software, there is no need to get a BD drive. Almost 100% of games I buy are through Steam or GOG. No need for physical media. (I guess Steve Jobs and Apple were right...)

I 100% agree on the purchase of AnyDVD HD. That piece of software is the bomb-diggity. I use it on my "big rig" to decrypt and rip the kid movies we get on Blu-Ray, and put them on my media server (a Mac Mini that feeds our Apple TVs). Can use Handbrake on either Mac or PC, and MakeMKV is a great tool as well. Just no need for the adult movies that we rarely watch repeatedly/frequently.

I was wondering about using XMBC... But, I've about convinced myself to keep this a small disk-less system.

huh ? Why XBMC and Diskless ? XBMC supports about any network protocol aviable. I have no idea about BlueRay, but i was able to share my DVD drive on my computer and access it via XBMC over Network. (sadly the RaspberryPi doesn't support mpeg2 without license -.-)

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We gonna send it to outa space!

Well, I don't really need a disk drive to load or play games. Maybe instead of an HTPC I should have said "Steam Box". That's the real goal. I already have a setup of a Mac Mini and Apple TVs to stream media around the house.

Very Cool. I think you've hit on something that is becoming pretty popular. I probably would have done something similar to this if I didn't already have a bunch of spare parts around that wouldn't fit into an SFF rig. Instead I've decided to go with a Sugo SG07 Mini-ITX build which is quite a bit bigger than what you're looking for.

We'll have to see what happens with the "Official" Steam Box systems but for the time being I think this is a much better alternative to buying a half dozen different devices and cramming them all into your entertainment centre.