Well just lloked at the board you suggested and it does not have PCI E power slot so the PSU you suggest should work. May be worth buying it before the case and trying it to see how noisy it is.

What the hell are you planning to store on 2TB of hard drive :eek:

Or should i not ask :P

The PCIe power cable (2x3 pin molex style) is only required for highish end graphics card which need more power than can be sourced through the PCIe bus.

Using the built-in graphics (whether you opt for an intel or AMD board) will never require the PCIe power so I wouldn't worry too much about it. You can also get adaptor leads if ever you did change, although I'd want to check the PSU can provide enough juice as PCIe graphics cards requiring extra power often need rather a lot of it!

I have one or two molex to SATA convertors, but don't have the 3 you might need. But the motherboard should come with one or two too

Edited 31 December, 200817 yr by tfboy
being an idiot and not reading previous posts properly

Following on from Xav's comments but still staying Intel I though this would suffice. Asus P5Q-EM - Socket 775 - Intel G45 - DDR2 1066(O.C.)/800/667 - SATA - Gigabit Lan - : ASU-P5QEM

Funny you should suggest that motherboard, Ian. As a matter of fact, I built a PC on the 24th December with exactly that motherboard!

Initially I did go for the cheaper P5QLEM but had to RMA it after I found out that if using more than two sticks of RAM, it only supported single-sided DIMMs And it's using the G43 chipset. You won't need to use up all 4 slots for the RAM (I put 8GB in the build), but I'd stick to the G45 P5QEM as it has the better X4500HD GPU in it.

It's true that the AMDs can through out a fair bit of heat, but if you don't overclock it, and you use a dual-core energy efficient model, they're pretty good and stay around the 45W power bracket which any decent HSF should be able to manage without any trouble whatsoever and remain silent.

I'd recommend getting a third party aftermarket HSF but despite the misleading pictures, the case isn't that tall and will probably only allow for a 100mm total height for a cpu heatsink + fan combo.

Following on from Xav's comments but still staying Intel I though this would suffice. Asus P5Q-EM - Socket 775 - Intel G45 - DDR2 1066(O.C.)/800/667 - SATA - Gigabit Lan - : ASU-P5QEM

Just build my game pc last night using this board. As said before was intended to upgrade the HTPC but got a few extra bits from santa so built a game pc instead. E7300, ATI 4850, 4GB So far its great.

Stu, As for the 350w PSU. Used an old Antec 350w in the new pc. PC has 2 drives striped and a ATI 4580 which on the box recommended I had a 450w PSU. E7300 overclocked to 3.33Ghz and grpahics card overclocked too. So far no problems.

This seems to be the same as the eBuyer one and crops up in lots of places -

400W Matx MICRO ATX PSU FOR PC CASE, SATA POWER NEW on eBay, also Micro ATX SFX Power Supplies, Power Supplies, Desktop PC Components, Computing (end time 23-Jan-09 13:51:00 GMT)

This will have all you need Stu

ThermalTake TR2 550Watt PSU : novatech.co.uk : TT-W0101

Quiet as well, I have a 420w one in mine, £32 for that one if you feel you don't need 550w.

And as for drives, these two are the answer

Samsung Spin Point F1 SATAII 1TB 32Mb Cache Hard Drive <8.9ms 7200rpm - OEM : novatech. : SAM-S100S2

Or

Maxtor DiamondMax 22 SATAII 1TB 32Mb Cache Hard Disk Drive <11.0ms 7200rpm - OEM : nova : MAX-DM1TBS

Or their smaller variant's.

This will have all you need Stu

ThermalTake TR2 550Watt PSU : novatech.co.uk : TT-W0101

Quiet as well, I have a 420w one in mine, £32 for that one if you feel you don't need 550w.

That's ATX though, the case requires mATX.

I built one of these around 4 months ago after my trusty Xbox (1) died for the 4th time.

Could have spent a whole lot less but wanted a fairly powerful system with a load of storage so I think the final bill was around £470 (plus Vista Ultimate a few months earlier from a friend who works for Microsoft, £40)

- Antec Fusion V2 in silver

- 4gb RAM

- 1TB and 750MB spinpoint HDDs

- Blu Ray and HD-DVD LG combo drive

- GA-MA78GM-S2h motherboard

- AMD Athlon 6000+

Had some interesting times with the install. Started out 64bit until I realised that 64bit video decoders aren't up to scratch yet for 1080p. Dropped back to 32bit (and hence lost the use of a chunk of ram) and now everything is running fine.

Using Vista Media Centre with a 'video browser' plugin and am very pleased - need to install some codecs and do a couple of hacks to get MKV files recognised and playable. Very rarely use the DVD drive.

Case is superb - went for the silver over the black as people were reporting the display was better (VFD vs LED in the black). Started out with both sets of fans at 'medium' speed but CPU is quite happy on low and the case is near silent even with the standard CPU cooler. Certainly can't here it with the TV on unlike the Xbox which was easily heard in quieter scenes.

Only case mod needed is to get power to the remote sensor when it's on stand-by (so you can 'wake' it up with the remote) but is only a 10 minute job.

Motherboard is excellent - HDMI out as standard and the quality is fantastic on a 1080p TV - onboard optical sound also used.

720p playback is rock solid. 1080p is perfect probably 99% of the time, sometimes the lip sync can be out for 10 seconds or so when I think the PC is doing something in the background - always catches up quickly and doesn't really detract.

Don't play many games as have consoles, but do use a few emulators - can recommend getting the Microsoft 360 pad adapter (only around £15 quid) which will let you use a wireless 360 pad.

I use a 'one for all' type remote and bought a media centre remote just to 'learn' the signals from it - give me a shout if you want to borrow it if you use such a remote.

That's ATX though, the case requires mATX.

Not sure what you mean there Stu, mATX is just a smaller board ? any psu will do to power it.

Always avoid 'value' brands for PSU's yes they are usually cost effective but are noisy and very short lived, go with something branded, thermaltake are a good option also see if pc power and cooling offer an solution these are bulletproof PSU's.

Although having just done a quick search it seems you are right about there being a lack of options this appears to be a side effect of a lot of the newer slim style cases being able to accomodate the full size PSU's... but whatever you do don't skimp on this part

That's the problem. The case requires a mATX power supply and it's a struggle to find one, let alone a branded one.

Not sure what you mean there Stu, mATX is just a smaller board ? any psu will do to power it.

EV Black MATX Media Center Case With Brushed Aluminium Front Panel - No PSU - Ebuyer

Compatible with MicroATX PSUs (No PSU included)

Ahhh, you mean a normal one wont fit inside the case?

Have you considered a Silverstone case, these are media ones designed to look like a HiFi seperate.

Got it, look no further

Lian Li PC-V350B Aluminium Black Cube Case : novatech.co.uk : LIA-V350B

Power issues is one of the reasons I often end up using a model from Shuttle.

Used this one last time, and haven't heard any complaints yet

Shuttle Europe - SG33G5M (D'VO Series)

Steve

Ok so had a dig around and here's 1 option

Currys - Shop for Power Supplies - JEANTECH SI-A300P3 300W MICRO ATX POWER SUPPLY UNIT

Specs are here for quick viewing let me know what you are planning to run inside the box and we can do a voltage measurement, I have used Jeantech before without problems (although some people slate them) of note is the dual 12v rails this is in my view a must.

• Jeantech SI-A300P3 300W Micro ATX PSU
  
• Silence Auto Fan Control
  
• Built In Temperature Sensor
  
• Over Voltage//Short Circuit Protection
  

• SATA Connector
  
• 24 Pins (20+4) Power Connector
  
• Dual 12V Rail (V1+V2)
  
• Passive PFC
  

Hmm Also this COULD be the nuts for microATX

Newegg.com - SeaSonic SS-350SFE 350W SFX12V V3.1 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies

Edited 1 January, 200917 yr by loco

Ahhh, you mean a normal one wont fit inside the case?

Have you considered a Silverstone case, these are media ones designed to look like a HiFi seperate.

Got it, look no further

Lian Li PC-V350B Aluminium Black Cube Case : novatech.co.uk : LIA-V350B

I've looked at that one but not sure I want a cube.

Power issues is one of the reasons I often end up using a model from Shuttle.

Used this one last time, and haven't heard any complaints yet

Shuttle Europe - SG33G5M (D'VO Series)

Steve

Again, nice case but not too sure I want a cube.

Yep, can understand that - have come up against the same question quite a few times

Other side is that often the box doesn't need to be in sight; I've run a remote control sensor before in such situations, like Sky engineers sometimes do with boxes in tricky installs.

Steve

If you don't mind hiding it Stu I found this one today while looking for one of the others

Novatech Galaxy V Full Tower Case : novatech.co.uk : NOV-GALAXY

Or this if silence is your main consideration.

Nexus Caterpillar ATX MIDI Tower Silent PC System Case : novatech.co.uk : NEX-CAT

Stu, if you haven't yet purchased the case and you're having second thoughts because of the limited mATX PSU availability, I'd recommend a Silverstone case, as they're pretty well built, and tend to have designs which blend in with the rest of your gear.

I have a Lascala LC-10S in silver (you can get a 10B in black)

[OC]ModShop - SilverStone LC10 HTPC case: Introduction is a review. The build is not fantastic, but the photos show you what it looks like, better than Silverstone's website does (they only have the black one) SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd - Designing Inspiration

Edited 2 January, 200917 yr by tfboy

statement of the obvious but maxtor = seagate these days.

I've got a Silverstone case going spare as well. I'm not at home at the moment though, so not able to tell you which model it is.

Steve

Those Silverstone cases are quite nice, I've seen pictures of a few now.

Hiding it isn't an option.

I've had a slight change ot tack and have been looking at some readymades -

Buy HP Pavilion Slimline S3652 Desktop PC online at JohnLewis.com

or

HP Pavilion Slimline s3644 Desktop PC. Cheap HP home and office computers from PC World.

I'm sure the purists in you will turn in your server rooms but they have the Small Form Factor that I'm ideally looking for and a spec that I simply don't think I can build myself for anywhere near the price. Ok so they don't have the massive storage from new but it is a reasonable amount and when I've filled the supplied one I can drop a tb one in.

Windows Vista® Home Premium 64-bit

AMD Phenom™ processor 8250e

NVIDIA® nForce™ 430 chipset

4 GB

500 GB

Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe Technology

256mb NVIDIA® GeForce™ 9300 GE with PureVideo® HD technology

DVI/VGA port' date=' HDMI port

High Definition Audio 5.1

TV (analog and DVB-T) tuner card,

Wireless keyboard and optical mouse

HP Vista Media Center Remote Control

15in1 memory card reader

6 USB 2.0 ports (2 in front); 1 FireWire®-IEEE-1394 ports

1 front audio port, 3 rear analog audio ports & 1 rear digital audio port

[/quote']

Windows Vista® Home Premium 64-bit

AMD Phenom™ processor 9150e

NVIDIA® nForce™ 430 chipset

4 GB

640 GB

Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe Technology

512mb NVIDIA® GeForce™ 9500 GS with PureVideo® HD technology

DVI/VGA port' date=' HDMI port

High Definition Audio 5.1

TV (analog and DVB-T) tuner card,

Wireless keyboard and optical mouse

HP Vista Media Center Remote Control

15in1 memory card reader

6 USB 2.0 ports (2 in front); 1 FireWire®-IEEE-1394 ports

1 front audio port, 3 rear analog audio ports & 1 rear digital audio port

[/quote']

Both also have built in wireless which IIRC is 'n' which would be handy as the rest of my network is 'n'.

What do you think??

If you're planning on using media centre I would personally steer clear of 64bit Windows, unless the various 64bit decoders/splitters have got a lot better than they were 6 months ago when I tried them.

Unlike WMP, AFAIK Vista64 can only run the 64bit version of VMC whereas WMP can run the 32bit version and hence use 32bit decoders/splitters.

Only relevant if you're running HD video content