Good build for an HTPC?

[TheWhiteMage]

Making my parents an HTPC for Christmas to help with them with making the move to 'cut the cord/cable.'

They aren't a fan of streaming boxes, so I figured an HTPC would be the route to go down.

I've built myself a high end gaming pc before, but on the low end I'm just trying to be budget friendly and make it quiet, but still reliable and fast enough.

I have a 380GB HDD that will go into the build also, here it is.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/21h2M

CPU: AMD A8-6500 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($104.24 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A55M-HD2 Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($46.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($79.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Silverstone ML03B HTPC Case ($63.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 350W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($65.91 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-2208 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($87.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $583.08

Edit: Changed the optical drive to something that comes with the Blu-Ray software.

 

[Outlander_04]

I have just built an HTPC using

Pentium G3220
Gigabyte GA-H81M-HD3
2 x4 gig of RAM [ 2 x2 would have been enough , but I had the 8 gig kit ]
Seasonic 350 watt psu
Avermedia Tv tuner card
Silverstone GD-05
Noctua NH -L12
and a WD Blue hard drive Which will be replaced soon with a hybrid drive
Win 7 64 bit

Works really well . The Hybrid Seagate is on order and when it arrives I will clone the OS to it . Its nearly as fast as an SSD in cached workloads and booting but has plenty of storage

I did a 7 volt mod on the case fans and have the cpu cooler running at the slowest possible speeds . Its very cool and quiet . The load temps are only around 35C . It had plenty of power for any 2D graphics , and support for resolutions up to 4K which AMD wont have until Kaveri .

If you do build with AMD then I would use an AM2+ socket mb so the cpu can be upgraded

 

[sora]

Making my parents an HTPC for Christmas to help with them with making the move to 'cut the cord/cable.'

They aren't a fan of streaming boxes, so I figured an HTPC would be the route to go down.

I've built myself a high end gaming pc before, but on the low end I'm just trying to be budget friendly and make it quiet, but still reliable and fast enough.

I have a 380GB HDD that will go into the build also, here it is.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/21h2M

CPU: AMD A8-6500 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($104.24 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A55M-HD2 Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($46.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($79.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Silverstone ML03B HTPC Case ($63.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 350W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($65.91 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-2208 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($87.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $583.08

Edit: Changed the optical drive to something that comes with the Blu-Ray software.

Solid! If you have a non-OEM copy of Win7 laying around somewhere you could use that as it would save $89.