Blue Prints: HTPC part 3

So yeah I've been pretty busy over the holidays and I have not been able to update my blog but it seems that I am free to do that right now. Call of Duty: world at war and left 4 dead seem to be taking up most of my time right now.

So it seems that the next important part that I need to look into is the ram for my HTPC. From what I've read online it doesn't seem that I need a lot of ram for this build but since I will be running windows Vista on it, it's probably a good idea to have at least 2 Gb. Luckily DDR2 ram right now is very cheap since retailers are getting ready to sell new DDR3 for the new Intel i7 systems out that. That made it easy to get 2 GB of ram for under $50. I decided to use G. Skill game from newegg.ca because it is fairly cheap and yet it has a very good rating (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231144). The CAS speeds are looking pretty good too at 5 around the table. It is also the best kind of ram that the motherboard supports as DDR2 1066 which is the fastest DDR2 memory that is made. Besides that I don't know what else I can get into about this ram, I've never use the brand G. Skill before, mostly get to patriot but I sounds like they are pretty good at what they do.

The Hard drive seems like the next part that needs some special details. As previously stated there are seems special requirements that are need to be met for this build, mostly lot power and quite. For this I have looked into Western Digital line of Green HDD. The one I have consider is their 640 GB model (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136298). It has the Sata 3.0GB/s speed which is important but also includes a bunch of power saving features. The reviews from this drive seem to be very impressive and the prices is only about $85 which is not much more expensive then a non-green hard drive with the same capacity. It also has a much of features to reduce vibrations to keep it nice and quite.

The only thing left to consider is the case. It is one of the most important parts to consider which is kind of unique when making a HTPC. You have to consider looks and airflow when picking a good case. The case that I'm interested in is the Antec Silver veris Fusion 430 (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129029). It is a micro atx case so my mother board will have no difficulty fitting into to it. its has the nice little display that you can program what it says which is a nice little feature. Has a 430 watt power supply which is enough power but I may have to replace if it gets to loud. It also come with two huge 120mm fans which is more then enough to keep my HTPC running cool. I think that it will nicely fit into my home theatre.

For now I'm not going to look into getting a Blue-ray drive but I will defiantly do it in the future when prices are much lower so it looks like a DVD burner will have to do. Besides that I think I'm done. If you have an questions or you have found that I have missed something please leave a comment and I will get back to you asap. Anyways this build is done so keep on building.