Home Theatre PC Buyer's Guide - Q1 2009

Preferred Build 3: High End Gaming Full ATX

The build decision for the high end is difficult - it has to command space for hard drive expansion, as well as the potential of 1080p HD gaming too - the benefit of PC gaming while sitting on a comfortable sofa in front of a large TV is certainly an appealing prospect to some.

Our decision to go Intel Core 2 Quad rather than AMD Phenom II below is literally because we feel Gigabyte's use of the Intel P45 chipset is far superior to anything that we've seen from the AMD side. Our personal favourite on the AMD front is the Asus M3A79-T Deluxe, however it's overwhelmingly more expensive than the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R below, and offsets any saving for the AMD CPU over the Intel choice.

The case also has to be large, cool, quiet and the sexiest "no bling" beast around, and somehow we've got to fit a graphics card in there and go pro-audio too. Be sure to check our alternatives too, because they have strong merits in their own right.

Motherboard

First Choice: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
UK Price (as reviewed): £112.50 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): $117.75 (ex. Tax)

Recently we reviewed the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R and were certainly pleased enough to recommend it. When properly tweaked, it performs great and while it may lack features like ATI CrossFire and dual Ethernet, it has lots of upgradability - plenty of SATA, great audio, decent overclocking and a really intuitive, full featured BIOS.

For just over £100, it's good value and a great backbone to any system. More importantly for our HTPC build, its completely fanless heatpipe design means it's completely silent. In addition to that, the Dynamic Energy Saver software will further save that extra bit of power when possible.

CPU

First Choice: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
UK Pricing: £235.00 (Inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $279.99 (ex. Tax)

The Core 2 Quad Q9550 might still be an expensive CPU and the Q6600 G0 is still the preferred choice in our buyer's guide. However, when building an ass-kicking super fast HTPC, we want it as lower power as possible - this means using the latest 45nm Intel technology and avoiding overclocking if possible. At 2.83GHz it's fast enough for HD gamers which predominantly need the clock speed, but at the same time the extra cores will afford extra overhead should there be a need for media serving, downloading or TV recording in the background.

Case

First Choice: Lian Li Tyr PC-X2000
UK Pricing: £325.83 (Inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $721.26 (ex. Tax)

Despite its high price tag, the Tyr is the perfect complement to any high-end home theatre setup. There's no doubt that its sleek black style looks utterly gorgeous; the "tall and thin" design goes perfectly next to a floor standing speaker or a bookcase for example.

While we accept case design is a very personal choice because everyone has their own sense of style (and affordability), as well as being naturally limited by what the wife/girlfriend will let them buy for the living room, the Tyr should please everyone while throwing in exceptional quietness with excellent cooling. In fact, it fits perfectly with the passive Gigabyte Radeon HD 4850 we have listed as the alternative choice of graphics card and it's got enough space for six hard drives and a couple of optical drives too.

We did have a problem with the build quality and panel fitting in our initial review, but from what we've seen since, it looks like these issues have been addressed. Also, if you don't want something quite so tall, the Tyr X500 is also available as well.

Memory

First Choice: OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Gold Memory
UK Pricing: £43.18 (Inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $50.99 (ex. Tax)

For £1 more than the Corsair kit previously suggested, we'll happily upgrade to 1,066MHz memory and pocket the bump in performance. It comes pre-fitted with XTC heatspreaders and included OCZ EVP - enhanced voltage protection - if you want to push it a little more. What's more, OCZ includes a lifetime warranty on its products, so there's that additional peace of mind if something goes wrong.