# HTPC Build Advice Needed



## bettz (Sep 18, 2012)

Hi all i've been messing with my Revo rl70 for the past week and i'm very impressed with it.I've showed my parents what it can do and they want one but in a case that would fit in there tv unit.I was after some advice & help on what parts would be best? 

My dad would like to be able to play some pc games old total war games etc nothing to new but the more future proof it is will be a bonus!! Would it also be possible to record tv? then he can sell his humax box ??

I'll mostly try and source the parts from ebay 

Also Capable of flawless 1080 playback
HDMI out
Blue Ray Drive

He's looked at a few cases he likes 
Lion-Li Cases & Antec Fusion Cases
I was thinking of at least a 1TB Hdd
We wouldn't need an O/s as i've windows 7 Home

Any Advice?

I think the list of components I need is

Case:Antec Fusion Remote
Motherboard:
Processor:
Psu:
Gpu:
Ram:
Tv Card:
Hdd:
Blue Ray Drive:


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

Blue-ray drive: LG Intern SATA Bluray reader 10x / DVD±RW 16x CH10LS28 (Bulk)

Very nice silent drive. - Cheap as well.

HDD: Western Digital Intern HDD Caviar Green 2TB (IntelliPower / 64MB Cache / Sata 6Gb/s / NCQ)

Very silent and cheap, though fast due to SATA 600 and the cache.

CPU: Intel Core i3-2100T 2,5GHz / 4MB / Socket 1155 (Boxed) 

I bought this CPU mostly for one reason. 

The fan is extremly low profile. Therefore, I did not had to go and buy another fan for the HTPC.

More than enough power to both play and playback any movie without issues. (Tested with massive Blue-ray issues, most new movies and also "normal blue-ray movies on disc".

Ram: Corsair 8GB DDR3 PC3-10600 1333MHz SO-DIMM (9-9-9-24) (CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9) (2x4GB)

8 Gigabyte cheap nice ram. - Works as intended nothing special, but I like the brand.

Motherboard: ASUS P8H67-I PRO - Intel H67 / m-ITX / PCI-E / VGA

Many great futures on the board like automatically clocking etc.

Chassis: Thermaltake Element Q - Svart (200W) 

I gotta say: I love Antec Fusion Remote. For my first HTPC build, I was not willing to pay that much for the chassis and I also would have issue with the space next to the TV.

Personal taste. - I am a big fan of Thermaltake and the included powersupply is very nice. Also, it is very very small.

This build do NOT need a extra graphic card. The build in HD controller is more than enough for games and movies. I would probably not play BF3 on it though 

For mouse and keyboard in the living room where this RIG is places, wife and me uses:

http://mobilemouse.com/

It is great and very very easy to use. It is also very responsive.

Some pictures of the RIG:







 mini fan






 Side of HTPC






 Front with drive






  Back of HTPC






 mobile mouse


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## Ikaruga (Sep 19, 2012)

Wrathier said:


> CPU: Intel Core i3-2100T 2,5GHz / 4MB / Socket 1155 (Boxed)
> 
> I bought this CPU mostly for one reason.
> 
> The fan is extremly low profile. Therefore, I did not had to go and buy another fan for the HTPC.



But the price difference is more than $50 compared to the i3-2100, so you could have had a quieter custom cooler for the saved money, not to mention that the i3-2100 is also faster while it only needs max(!) 10-14W more at full load.

---

Anyway, to OP: if you want to game on the rig as well and if it also fits the budget, perhaps you may consider to undervolt an i5 instead, but again, only if you have some extra money to burn to make the build more future-proof. They need extremely low (almost i3-ish) power when undervolted.... but... well, HTPCs are mostly connected to 1080p displays where most of the games gonna be GPU bond anyway (i3 vs i5 CPUs doesn't make much difference at that resolution most of the times), so an i3 is more than enough for casual gaming. You better go with a regular i3 and a stronger GPU, me thinks.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 19, 2012)

heck for a HTPC id put in a slim Optical drive and a 2.5 Size HDD/SSD. Max out the ram capacity so there is no issues.


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> heck for a HTPC id put in a slim Optical drive and a 2.5 Size HDD/SSD. Max out the ram capacity so there is no issues.



I must inform, here I would have to pay like 3 times for a slim drive with half the capabilities the drive I bought got. They are very expensive slim drives compared to old fashion onces.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 19, 2012)

Wrathier said:


> I must inform, here I would have to pay like 3 times for a slim drive with half the capabilities the drive I bought got. They are very expensive slim drives compared to old fashion onces.



what country are you in?


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

Ikaruga said:


> But the price difference is more than $50 compared to the i3-2100, so you could have had a quieter custom cooler for the saved money, not to mention that the i3-2100 is also faster while it only needs max(!) 10-14W more at full load.
> 
> --------------
> 
> ...


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> what country are you in?



I am currently in Sweden 

I only buy hardware from www.webhallen.se - No matter if it is 50sek cheaper or not. I prefer to buy stuff from the same place, tends to be less hasle when I replace stuff.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 19, 2012)

Wrathier said:


> Ikaruga said:
> 
> 
> > But the price difference is more than $50 compared to the i3-2100, so you could have had a quieter custom cooler for the saved money, not to mention that the i3-2100 is also faster while it only needs max(!) 10-14W more at full load.
> ...


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> Wrathier said:
> 
> 
> > Yeah I'm not having any luck finding an internal- SATA slim multi-format BluRay burner or drive for that matter. I swore I've seen them before though...
> ...


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## Ikaruga (Sep 19, 2012)

Wrathier said:


> Hi mate.
> 
> Here in sweden the price difference on the two cpus are 99 SEK. the one you suggest costs 1049 and the other one cost 1148. - The fan there is just as little cost here 223. So it wouldnt have been cheaper. - I guess it depends where you live.



Indeed, you right in that case. 
But I wonder why is the regular i3 so expensive in Sweden


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

Ikaruga said:


> Indeed, you right in that case.
> But I wonder why is the regular i3 so expensive in Sweden



That is an excellent question. Its like half the price almost of my I7 I2700K.. 

I guess prices are just a little slow to drop up here in the north. We are not so many folks and I do not think the sales are massive like in some other countries.

For example, my Asus 680 Direct CU II OC costs still 5000 SEK here and I bought it at release for 5245 SEK. - I guess that is very expensive compared to the states for example.


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## DrunkenMafia (Sep 19, 2012)

I have the antec fusion and love it.  I have had it for about 4yrs now and everything still works great on it.  I would definitely go for a case which can take std components over the smaller ones which need slim drives and itx boards etc.  Mainly because they are so much cheaper and you have a lot more options. 

I will say one thing - Make sure you get a 60 / 120gb SSD for the OS to run off.  It made a world of difference with mine, especially when clicking on media centre etc.  Load times went from up to 10sec for media centre to load to about 1.5.  And they have dropped sooo much in price lately (I am considering raid 0 SSD's for my media centre - 2x60gb agility 3 drives are under $100)

A few points I have found along the way:


AMD make great HTPC's.  I have a X4 550BE and it is more than enough horsepower.
I would tell you to consider FM1 but its a bit of a dead socket.  Go for AM3 mATX.
16gb ram is more than enough, 8gb is plenty too but again its cheap as chips these days.
Don't waste money on a bluray burner, you won't use it.  Just get a player.
at least 2tb hdd space, it fills up quick when you are recording HD TV!!
Invest in a decent CPU cooler, nothing worse than listnening to the Whirring of a fan in the quiet parts of the movie.  Beware of height with Antec fusion.
Invest in a quiet PSU.  450w is heaps big enough.
If you want a basic gamer try for a passive card or if you need more power go for a card with a non reference cooler which will be silent during movies anyway.
i3 / i5 may be a better option but I have no experience with those in a HTPC.  I guess they would be good with a pcie graphics card.

Just my 2 cents worth and a few tips.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 19, 2012)

Wrathier said:


> eidairaman1 said:
> 
> 
> > This is a good example:
> ...


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

DrunkenMafia said:


> I have the antec fusion and love it.  I have had it for about 4yrs now and everything still works great on it.  I would definitely go for a case which can take std components over the smaller ones which need slim drives and itx boards etc.  Mainly because they are so much cheaper and you have a lot more options.
> 
> I will say one thing - Make sure you get a 60 / 120gb SSD for the OS to run off.  It made a world of difference with mine, especially when clicking on media centre etc.  Load times went from up to 10sec for media centre to load to about 1.5.  And they have dropped sooo much in price lately (I am considering raid 0 SSD's for my media centre - 2x60gb agility 3 drives are under $100)
> 
> ...



Excellent tip. However, up here I had a problem finding a fair priced motherboard 17*17CM supporting 16 GB ram. But then again, I play games on my pc from my system spec in signature and watch movies and listen to music on the HTPC. 

I love your suggestions though and think it is decent if you want to use it as both a gaming rig and a htpc. For example, my htpc makes not much noise and it uses very very little electricity. Its not build to have 450 Watt power supply as it uses hardly any power at all.

Perhaps in the future when I make a HTPC for everything with massive gfx etc more than a 200(220 bronze rated is the TT power supply) would be needed. 

(But then again, are we still talking about a HTPC?) Back to topic. I use the I3 2100T (Specs: http://ark.intel.com/products/53423/Intel-Core-i3-2100T-Processor-(3M-Cache-2_50-GHz)) in order to take advantage of the HD2000 graphic witch is pretty powerfull.

At least way more than enough for a HTPC. It can play different titles, even crysis, but it wouldnt be awesome. It uses almost no power therefore generating less heat and therefore I do not need any chassis coolers. Only 1 cpu cooler.


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## Jetster (Sep 19, 2012)

And I have a i3 550 with a 6670 and we built this for a friend with 4 Gb ram and its just as smooth and more powerful graphics then the HD2000 
AMD A6-3500 Llano 2.1GHz (2.4GHz Max Turbo) Socket...
ASRock A75M-ITX FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA ...

And you can run this on 120w PSU


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

Jetster said:


> And I have a i3 550 with a 6670 and we built this for a friend with 4 Gb ram and its just as smooth and more powerful graphics then the HD2000
> AMD A6-3500 Llano 2.1GHz (2.4GHz Max Turbo) Socket...
> ASRock A75M-ITX FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA ...



Agreed. Seriously it doesnt matter much. If you use it for almost nada, it works with almost any solutions. 

It all comes down to personal preference and I would not buy AMD anynmore even if I was paid to do it.

- By the way, it start to matter a lot if you turn off your pcs or not. I never shot my stuff off.

- And regarding the power, mine uses less than 15watt idling.

According to http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-2100t_11.html it is using down to 10 watt.


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## Jetster (Sep 19, 2012)

Wrathier said:


> Agreed. Seriously it doesnt matter much. If you use it for almost nada, it works with almost any solutions.
> 
> It all comes down to personal preference and I would not buy AMD anynmore even if I was paid to do it.
> 
> - By the way, it start to matter a lot if you turn off your pcs or not. I never shot my stuff off.



All I own is Intel. My last AMD was the FX55. I just shocked how well this little socket is for the price. Other than that I agree with you

No arguing the i3s they are clearly nice chips


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

Jetster said:


> All I own is Intel. My last AMD was the FX55. I just shocked how well this little socket is for the price. Other than that I agree with you
> 
> No arguing the i3s they are clearly nice chips



I just checked up on that. 

If I was to the "other side" I would also have been looking into that. It seems nice.

I forgot to add at first, that the motherboard and chassis does support a large 1 sloted graphic card without issues. I just dont have the need for it. Cheers.


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## bettz (Sep 19, 2012)

Thanks for all the advice guys i've been looking around and so far have come up with this

Ideally i'd like it to be a low powered htpc.The prices are rough estimates but i'm still looking to cut costs further

Case: Antec Fusion £118

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3V, £40

Processor: Intel Core i3 3225,£110

Psu: Be Quiet E9 Straight Power 480W £90

Gpu: ATI Radeon 6450 £20

Cpu Cooler: Scythe Shuriken £20-£30

Ram: Corsair 4GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory £20

Tv Card: BlackGold USB twin DVB-T BGT3550 £90

HDD:SSD to install Os £50
1 TB HDD £50


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

bettz said:


> Thanks for all the advice guys i've been looking around and so far have come up with this
> 
> Ideally i'd like it to be a low powered htpc.The prices are rough estimates but i'm still looking to cut costs further
> 
> ...



Great. It is going to be awesome


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## bettz (Sep 19, 2012)

Thanks mate first time building a htpc.I've just gotta get a Antec Fusion case for under £100 gutted as i missed one on ebay that went for £36.99 the other day

I'm that impressed with some of the htpc builds that im contemplating selling my iMac


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

bettz said:


> Thanks mate first time building a htpc.I've just gotta get a Antec Fusion case for under £100 gutted as i missed one on ebay that went for £36.99 the other day
> 
> I'm that impressed with some of the htpc builds that im contemplating selling my iMac



Ha ha awesome man 

What did you think of the little TT chasis I took a few pics of?

It is called Thermaltake Element Q: http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product.aspx?s=1321&id=1896

There is one LARGE - with it though. The front is so plastic. You do not notice it much in the living room, but it is truly a shame. But okay it costed 89.9639 USD so it is not a furtune.


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## Ikaruga (Sep 19, 2012)

bettz said:


> Thanks for all the advice guys i've been looking around and so far have come up with this
> 
> Ideally i'd like it to be a low powered htpc.The prices are rough estimates but i'm still looking to cut costs further
> 
> ...



May I ask why do you need the 6450 with such a "strong" IGP as the HD4000? Get a "proper" card or just use the IGP imo.


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## bettz (Sep 19, 2012)

I was going to just use the HD4000 as it would cut costs But would it be able to cope with games such as rome total war?



Ikaruga said:


> May I ask why do you need the 6450 with such a "strong" IGP as the HD4000? Get a "proper" card or just use the IGP imo.


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## Wrathier (Sep 19, 2012)

Here there is some great benchmark with game tests over the HD4000:

(Great gfx I would say)

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4000-Benchmarked.73567.0.html


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## bettz (Sep 19, 2012)

Thanks for that i suppose i can always add a better gpu in the future.




Wrathier said:


> Here there is some great benchmark with game tests over the HD4000:
> 
> (Great gfx I would say)
> 
> http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4000-Benchmarked.73567.0.html


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## Jetster (Sep 19, 2012)

Ive said this before but again, HTPCs are not for gaming. It goes against everything HTPC. Quiet, low power, and sleek. You start trying to game and you might as well build a gaming rig so you get decent frame rates. A PC that does both will do nether well. But maybe that's just me?


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## Ikaruga (Sep 19, 2012)

bettz said:


> I was going to just use the HD4000 as it would cut costs But would it be able to cope with games such as rome total war?



Well, a dedicated GPU card adds extra features to your system, but the 6450 is slower than the HD4000, so if you really want to add something, I think it would be better to add something stronger/faster. If you don't have the budget now, just use the HD4000 and save some money and buy a better card later. Don't go for the 6450 if you already have a HD4000.
*edit:* The best would be to try with the HD4000 first and only go for an extra card if it's really needed.



Jetster said:


> Ive said this before but again, HTPCs are not for gaming. It goes against everything HTPC. Quiet, low power, and sleek. You start trying to game and you might as well build a gaming rig so you get decent frame rates. A PC that does both will do nether well. But maybe that's just me?



I think it's just you. It's 2012 after all. It's more expensive to build a fast one compared to the bigger builds, but they can game just as fine


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## bettz (Sep 19, 2012)

cheers for the advice just waiting on a good case to come up at a reasonable price.Any Antec Fusion case lookalikes out there i should look at ????

kinda like this case http://www.quietpc.com/st-f7c-evo


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## bettz (Sep 20, 2012)

I've been offered this build any advice or shall i stick with the i3?? I'm thinking just add a tv card and it'll be good to go?

Case: Antec Veris Fusion Black Desktop with Remote Control

Motherboard: ASRock M3A790GMH/128M Motherboard AMD Socket AM3 AMD 790GX+SB750 MicroATX RAID Gigabit LAN (Integrated AMD Radeon HD 3300 Graphics)

Processor: AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core (550) 3.1GHz Processor 512KB (L2 Cache) Socket AM3

CPU Cooler: Scythe Ninja Mini to replace the stock one, allows for near-silent cooling

Memory: Kingston 4GB 1600MHZ DDR3

Hard Drives:
1 x Western Digital 1.5TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache
1 x Western Digital 2TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache

Power Supply: Compucase Green Earth 350W 80plus Certified PSU

Optical Drive: Pioneer BDC-202 Blu-Ray Reader 12X DVD±RWDL/RAM SATA Black

Keyboard/Mouse: KeySonic 2.4Ghz Wireless HTPC Compact Keyboard with Integrated TouchPad – USB

Graphics Card: Inno3D GT430 1GB PCI-Express


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## Wrathier (Sep 20, 2012)

bettz said:


> I've been offered this build any advice or shall i stick with the i3?? I'm thinking just add a tv card and it'll be good to go?
> 
> Case: Antec Veris Fusion Black Desktop with Remote Control
> 
> ...



I would replace both the mainboard and the CPU to Mainboard: Asus and CPU: Intel.

But then again, I just builded my own HTPC with that and I am very happy with it.


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## Ikaruga (Sep 20, 2012)

bettz said:


> I've been offered this build any advice or shall i stick with the i3?? I'm thinking just add a tv card and it'll be good to go?
> 
> Case: Antec Veris Fusion Black Desktop with Remote Control
> Motherboard: ASRock M3A790GMH/128M Motherboard AMD Socket AM3 AMD 790GX+SB750 MicroATX RAID Gigabit LAN (Integrated AMD Radeon HD 3300 Graphics)
> ...



If you like that deal and want to go with that 790GX motherboard - which has an integrated GPU and hybrid crossfire capabilities - you might want to put a HD3450/70 next to it instead of the gt430, so both could be utilized for a little better performance. 

Personally I would go for a low power Sandy/Ivy bridge or an AMD Fusion (A8-3850) config (where you may add an extra HD6670 for Dual Graphics later if it's needed).

Also, You don't want two 7200rmp hard drives in your HTPC, because they are gonna be noisy as hell


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## Jetster (Sep 20, 2012)

When your done building it install XBMC 
http://xbmc.org/download/
And Aeon MQ 4
Skin Aeon MQ4 - My Menu - YouTube
Preview Skin Aeon MQ 4 pt br - YouTube


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## Wrathier (Sep 20, 2012)

Jetster said:


> When your done building it install XBMC
> http://xbmc.org/download/
> And Aeon MQ 4
> http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=135045
> ...



Hi Jester,

Just checked your HTPC out, I was soooo close to buy that chassis but coudlnt due to space issues next to my tv. Great look.


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## bettz (Oct 3, 2012)

Right thought i'd update this thread so i've managed to source a 

Antec Fusion case for £65 & it comes with a Antec EarthWatts EA430D Green Power supply

The seller has also thrown in a Scythe Ninja Mini cooler will this be able to cope with a i3 3225 cpu?

Now im waiting on a decent i3 3225 cpu 
also any recommendations on a motherboard that will suit this?


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## brandonwh64 (Oct 3, 2012)

bettz said:


> Right thought i'd update this thread so i've managed to source a
> 
> Antec Fusion case for £65 & it comes with a Antec EarthWatts EA430D Green Power supply
> 
> The seller has also thrown in a Scythe Ninja Mini cooler will this be able to cope with a i3 3225 cpu?



Yea those are decent coolers. should do that chip nicely


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## bettz (Oct 3, 2012)

Woow that was quick lol 



brandonwh64 said:


> Yea those are decent coolers. should do that chip nicely


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## brandonwh64 (Oct 3, 2012)

bettz said:


> Woow that was quick lol



I just looked though, and you are wanting to use this cooler on a intel I3 when it does not have mounting for 1155/1156

Scythe SCMNJ-1000 80mm Sleeve "NINJA MINI" CPU Coo...


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## bettz (Oct 3, 2012)

Looks like i'll have to buy a mounting clips 

http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/Scythe-LGA1366-4-Way-Mounting-Clips_6762.html



brandonwh64 said:


> I just looked though, and you are wanting to use this cooler on a intel I3 when it does not have mounting for 1155/1156
> 
> Scythe SCMNJ-1000 80mm Sleeve "NINJA MINI" CPU Coo...


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## bettz (Oct 6, 2012)

Received case and psu today its bigger than i expected .

In two minds about if i should just start using the htpc hooked up to my tv as my main pc .

I've a 27" i5 iMac that i thinking about selling


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