Advice on the HTPC build

[Detale]

OK so I saved up some scratch and I'm gonna drop some bucks on a nice new HTPC here are the preliminary specs I am looking at:

I will use my old Gigabyte board as it's still good and I only used it for about a month before upgrading

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L

I'll keep the wolfdale 3.0 processor in there cause it's cool and uses little voltage.

I'm gonna upgrade my ram and get some decent 4 gig G Skill 1066

2 Seagate Baracudda SATA drives (prob Raid em)

upgrade the Vid card from the 3450 to this ASUS 3650HD

and finally where most of the money is going. I a still undecided but I am leaning towards this HTPC case

Thermaltake DH102 VH2001BNS

I like it because I can use a regular ATX not micro board and of course the touch screen looks cool as hell. it's over $500 US so I want to make sure this is the one I really want before I buy.


If anyone has any suggestions as always I am open to them. Thanks guys

[clocker]

Today only, Newegg has a special on hard drives.
Either the Seagate 750 or (my choice) the Samsung Spinpoint F1 750 for $99.

[Detale]

I saw that but it's a 24 hour deal and I'm not going to order for a few days. I know you love the seagates but the Spinpoint has a 32mb cache while the SG only has a 16. Lastly you can only get one at that price and not like it's that big a deal really reg price is $119 so for the $20 saved I can wait

[DKre8ive1]

Wow! that is a nice case for sure but the price is pretty hefty.

[Detale]

Yeah expensive as shit but I cant say no to the touch screen built in like that.

[ryan20021982]

Dont know if you already ordered it or not but here is a nice case also with the touchscreen

I have there smaller model and its very nice quality

http://htpc.mce701.com/product_info....products_id=35

[Acid_death69]

That is gonna be cool detale, ive never thought about building a HTPC before. Can you use it like a normal PC?

[Detale]

Sure you can it is in a normal PC but looks like a Home theater component. I used a lower end Video card because I didn't need a really high end one but you can build it to suit you. Also they have some way cheaper cases out there check on newegg. I did build the system above but I haven't taken any pics yet, maybe today if I have some time. Let me say the case is expensive but looks awesome as hell. Piano black finish looks great. Runs like a dream, I did add a D-link Wireless N card so I didn't have any more wires then I needed coming out of the back.

[MEDBEDb]

id prefer some geforce video card instead of radeon ones ... got burned on 9800 pro cpl years ago, wont do same mistake again ... the cooling on radeon's sux .. unless u mod it of course. ...

[TheSickEmpire]

I'm thinking of building a HTPC also. I figured I'd use my old 4000+/Gigabyte SLI mobo and build off that.

For me, looks aren't a huge deal as it will be sitting behind a rear projection TV (my plan was to grab an external DVD drive and place it near my other components.. possibly a bluray drive also).

I looked into tuner cards/video cards, however, I'm not sure I know enough about the requirements of displaying 1080p to choose one as of yet.