Bruce Lee - HTPC Build

[Bravetart]

Dubbed Bruce Lee as it should be small but powerful! I'm building a HTPC to replace my Xbox 360 and PS3 which have served me well for media purposes rather than gaming over the past few years.

Spec is as follows:

Zotac A75 Mini-ITX WiFi
AMD A8 3870K
2x2GB 1600MHz Crucial Ballistix
1TB Samsung SpinPoint 2.5" drive
120GB Mushkin Chronos SSD (I was going to go 60GB but for £25 extra it seemed rude not to)
Samsung 12x Blu-Ray Reader

All of this is going to be housed in an Antec ISK 310-150 Mini-ITX case. CPU is somewhat overkill but should allow for the option of mild living room gaming!

The first parts arrived just now and I'll be posting updates over time

[El Wayneo]

As i put in the other thread its going to be really close, Guru3d has the 3870k, mobo, ram and ssd using 110 - 120W.

Add 12 - 22W for BDRom, 2 - 4W for idle or startup of 1tb laptop drive and 3 - 5w for the fan.


so best case scenario taking lowest LOAD figures is 127W

Worst case highest LOAD figures is 151W


Idle you will be fine as its around 50W less.


Will be fine for bluray playback though, can't wait to see it built will look good i reckon.


Edit: If you do get any issues than you can easily flog the 3870k and get the 3500 triple core as its a 65W part vs the 100W and as you got such a good deal you wouldn't lose any case.

[joker3327]

I actually have a similar set up but housed in this

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=47496

its actually a very nice looking case and everything fits with a little more air flow...enough for scythe shuriken

[Bravetart]

Brokenfeet was actually incredibly kind and did some power draw testing for me and reported as follows:

During MKV 720p playback the system didnt draw more than 53W.

During 3DMark 11, power draw sat consistently at 73W with a peak hitting 111W. the CPU physics test which drew a consistent 115W with no peaks. The combined GPU+CPU test at the end sat consistently at around 85W with a peak hitting 111W.

I think it should be ok but I guess time will tell.

Slightly bigger faux pas on my part is that based on watching a million review videos of various cases/builds I was adamant that I saw an Antec ISK with a regular 5.25" optical drive, however it appears that it only accepts a slim drive, d'oh. So I'm going to have to post off the Samsung BD-ROM drive back to Aria and order this instead:

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Stora...roductId=48284

Rest of the parts have arrived. The Antec was sent via Aria's second warehouse so arrived separately. Here it is in all its glory with the Samsung BD-ROM drive for size comparison. It really is tiny!



Also took delivery of the parts I got from Brokenfeet. They were all neatly packaged away until I pulled them all out Again, the size of the motherboard is ridiculous. Becomes obvious when next to the RAM!



Looking forward to getting through the work I have to do today so I can get cracking

[El Wayneo]

Looks awesome mate, can't wait to see it built.

[gray.woodford]

this is going to be good

[Bravetart]

Decided to press on with the build despite the lack of usable BD-ROM drive. As you can imagine, it was a little bit fiddly given the lack of room but all went relatively smoothly.

So here's a breakdown of the build. Notice the anti-static is more there to protect the table than the motherboard.

RAM installed



Cooler installed:



Here's where it's going! Note the position of the PSU, hence the need to connect it to the back for the plug, unfortunately it does get in the way a bit.



Et Voilą! Cable management was actually really easy as there's a nice channel either side of the motherboard. At the back I'd run the CPU connector and the side case fan along the bottom groove. Same at the front side for the front panel connectors



And then putting the drive bay back on, which was actually quite difficult. It's raised up slightly over the CPU cooler but low profile RAM would probably have been a better option, bear that in mind if you're thinking of using this case. I did have to use a bit of force to get it screwed back in but all seems ok. As you can see, there's still the drives to go in, hence the power connectors and SATA cables out the top. There's also the eSATA port going in to the front.



And finally, with the hard drives installed, you'll notice there's still a SATA and power connector hanging free, that's for the BD-ROM drive when my replacement slim version arrives today. It slots in underneath the panel the HDDs connect to.



You'll notice the mass of cables in the bottom right, it looks pretty untidy but they are out the way as there is no fan or vent at the front at all. Given the limited space, it's pretty much impossible to get them any neater and still have them away from the motherboard.

I turned it on while connected to the TV and nothing happened. Was a bit worried but there were no beeps, so went upstairs to try it with a monitor/DVI and it worked fine. CPU temps were about 35 in the BIOS, though I'd expect them to be slightly higher than that with the roof on

Still to do:

Install BD-ROM
Put roof on
Check temps
Install software
Take gratuitous photo of it sitting in the cabinet by the TV

[El Wayneo]

looks good mate, there isnt alot you can do anyway about the cables in mini itx cases, aslong as the fan at the top can blow onto the heatsink the temps will be fine.

[I3R0K3N7FEET]

wow its looking tight in there. though that antec case looks like it was a good call, when are you expecting the slim BD drive?

[Sarky]

Looks good, love small builds. The case layout looks interesting, but I do like the clean look of the front panel!

[Bravetart]

I think so, it's the size I was looking for and it looks good. Slim BD drive has just arrived and the build is now complete:



There it is, there's a little flap to push to get discs in and out.

Couple of other shots:




And in its place:



Ignore the cards and the white cable (used that previously to attach my Macbook Air.

Are there any decent temp monitoring programs for AMD chips? CoreTemp is blatantly telling fibs saying it's at 20 degrees.

[Sarky]

HWMonitor.

Looks awesome, I like the subtle look with it under your TV.

[El Wayneo]

Yeah they are great cases for the money.

[I3R0K3N7FEET]

awesome, looks like a great setup, fits in perfectly in place

in regards to temps, you will be lucky if you can find some software that tells you the temps accurately.

though generally the APU will be between 30 idle and 65 extreme load.

I wouldnt worry too much, that cooler is for 125w TDP chips and the 3870K is rated for 100w TDP

[sibeer]

Looks good to me. Love my Antec ITX system and it will be the next to get an upgrade as currently just running an Atom with Ion chipset.