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Advice on new HTPC budget build

B

bpatterson07

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Dec 29, 2013
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Not really concerned with gaming, just torrents and XBMC. Don't really need the Wi-Fi on the mobo. Is the RAM quick enough? Will be running W7 64-bit and have 3tb WD green for storage. Any recommendations to swap components out? Everything compatible?

Kingston Digital 60GB SSDNow V300 SATA 3 2.5 (7mm height) with Adapter Solid State Drive SV300S37A/60G

Kingston Technology HyperX LoVo 4 GB Kit (2x2GB Modules) 4 Dual Channel Kit 1600 (PC3 12800) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM KHX1600C9D3LK2/4GX

Gigabyte FM2 A85X(Hudson D4) Wi-Fi Mini ITX Motherboard with UEFI BIOS GA-F2A85XN-WIFI

AMD A6-6400K Richland 3.9GHz Socket FM2 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor AMD Radeon HD AD640KOKHLBOX

Antec ISK 300-150 Black Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case 150 Watt Power Supply
 
Everything looks fine but uping the memory size and speed is highly recommended and invest into a aftermarket cooler for a quieter system.
 
Everything looks good to me. Plenty of RAM it seems to me for what you need. If you REALLY wanted to you could up it to a couple sticks of 4GB for a total of 8. That's up to you though.
 
I'm just debating on the advantage of faster ram. From a gaming standpoint I can absolutely see the APU benefits, but for what I"m doing? I want this to be low power/noise/heat while performing admirably. It's not intended to a beast machine I want to overclock. I just don't see the need to go above the 1.25v lovo ram at 1600Mhz.
 
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i can tell you from my experience with my htpc that ddr3 1600 is plenty fast enough. You will be better served by upping the amount of RAM to 8 gb.
 
Agreed, for what you're doing your setup looks good.
+1 for upping the RAM to 8gb.
 
Not sure exactly what more ram is gonna do in this situation....2.5gb of ram is more than any 64bit HTPC needs if its not gonna game.
as for memory speeds a 1.8ghz core 2 duo running 667mhz ddr2 memory is also fast enough...

Now for an AMD APU sharing 512mb of DDR3 1600mhz and leaving 1gb after all necessary services is pretty good....no need to change anything...nice build imo


I think a good choice for an HTPC is to not use an HTPC at all..LOL
A google chromecast and this tablet for a remote/torrent downloader would be better
 
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bpatterson07 said:
Not really concerned with gaming, just torrents and XBMC. Don't really need the Wi-Fi on the mobo. Is the RAM quick enough? Will be running W7 64-bit and have 3tb WD green for storage. Any recommendations to swap components out? Everything compatible?

Kingston Digital 60GB SSDNow V300 SATA 3 2.5 (7mm height) with Adapter Solid State Drive SV300S37A/60G

Kingston Technology HyperX LoVo 4 GB Kit (2x2GB Modules) 4 Dual Channel Kit 1600 (PC3 12800) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM KHX1600C9D3LK2/4GX

Gigabyte FM2 A85X(Hudson D4) Wi-Fi Mini ITX Motherboard with UEFI BIOS GA-F2A85XN-WIFI

AMD A6-6400K Richland 3.9GHz Socket FM2 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor AMD Radeon HD AD640KOKHLBOX

Antec ISK 300-150 Black Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case 150 Watt Power Supply
Click to expand...

WD green? i dunno, maybe you could take blue version since green is not popular
http://forums.freenas.org/threads/5-of-10-wd-green-drives-failed-in-2-5-years.14469/
 
Thanks everyone for the input. It seems 4gb of the lovo ram would be more than adequate. If I run into issues I have spare DIMM's anyway that are faster and of more capacity, but I don't foresee that need. It is disconcerting about the WD green drives. At least it's a headsup to mirror it elsewhere.
 
4 Gb ram is plenty for An HTPC +XBMC 1600. Just squash your page file to 3000Mb and your good. Keep it on the SSD. Check my HTPC in my specs. I do everything you trying to do and more.

The new WD green drive are alot better then the older ones. I prefer the Seagate 7200. There fast and cheap $100 on sale for 3 Tb
 
Its an Intellipower drive or the model end in an X
 
What is the 4-letter combination on it? It should start with an "E".
 
That is one of the newer ones. Older ones were EADS and EARS.
 
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