Home › Forums › Club 3D (m)DP1.2 to HDMI2.0 UHD Active Adapter officially launched › RE: Club 3D (m)DP1.2 to HDMI2.0 UHD Active Adapter officially launched
Hey Ripped … firstly happy Easter to you.
Funny you should ask because I just bought my new rig to replace the NUC, and I was desperately hoping that the final package would arrive in the mail on Thursday so I could have some fun building my new HTPC over the Easter long weekend … but it was not to be. I’ll have to wait until next week to get it built. But anyway, here is my new HTPC build:
Case – Fractal Design Node 304 (white)
MOBO – Asrock H170M-ITX/ac
CPU – Intel i5 6400
RAM – 2x 4Gb Kingston HyperX DDR4 2133
HDD – Intel 120Gb SSD
GPU – Gigabyte GTX 960 2Gb Windforce
PSU – Corsair CS550M Plus Gold
All this is costing me a bit under $1200 which is more than I wanted to spend but it’s a pretty good spec machine, and should eat up 4K content for some time to come and also be good enough for some gaming as well. I did a lot of research on the case and PSU because we also just bought a new TV cabinet and the case has to fit in it properly. My main concerns were ventilation/cooling, space and noise. There are smaller cases that will fit this gear in it, but I didn’t want to create a hot box, which would make all the case fans, GPU fans and PSU fans have to spool up to vent the hot air and make a lot of noise. Of course there are bigger ITX cases as well, but most of them won’t fit the new TV cabinet.
My research tells me that this combination should be beefy enough to run my HTPC apps (mostly Plex) comfortably with the PSU & GPU fans on very low or even completely off. The case fans are supposed to be inaudible on low speed as well, so I’m hoping that this is my magic bullet.
I don’t blame you for looking at a different solution. I think the NUC is a good idea, and for many people it will be exactly the solution that they need. But for those of us who are more in the ‘enthusiast’ category, it really doesn’t cut it. Besides, when you start to look at HTPC cases, there are some really good looking designs around – you might be surprised.