PCI express question

[N10k]

These are my onboard slots available:

1 PCI expansion slot
2 PCI expansion slot
3 PCI Express x1 expansion slot
4 PCI Express x16 expansion slot

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/S...
Page 21

The plan!

I have 2Tb of space, 1 for films, 500gb for series and 500gb for music and files.
Windows 7 installed and want to output it all to my 46" LCD.
What is the best way to do this and what should i get?

Im thinking slot 1 - TV card

Slot 3 - optical out sound card - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prod...
will that fit? the slot is small

Slot 4
Il smack on of these in
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Nvidia-GTS-250-512MB-HDMI-Gr...

[N10k]

Will my plan work?

Thanks

[Road2Ruin]

Are you thinking about using this as a Media PC? If so then you are going about it the wrong way. Small and quiet is the solution.

[N10k]

Road2Ruin said:

Are you thinking about using this as a Media PC? If so then you are going about it the wrong way. Small and quiet is the solution.

It will be a media PC but the machine is upstairs with the cables coming down.

[Road2Ruin]

I notice from the details that it does have on board graphics, but cannot find any specs for it! However on board graphics are rarely up to the task if you later decide to display HD movies, though some are. A sound card is only necessay if you intend to output the sound to an external amplifier otherwise the simple jack output to the tv from the onboard sound would suffice. You can get sound cards and TV cards to fit both PCI slots and PCI express so you would have no problem with what you want, you just need to make sure when you buy it you are getting the one you want. The TV cards are available in many different sorts too with multiple tuners and built in MPEG encoding so often pays to read up on these.

Peter

[N10k]

Thanks for the reply.
The PC will need to ouput to my Amp, so need a decent sound card, and the onboard graphics card wont handle my MKVs.

So i need a graphics card and sound card.. Pronto..

Am i right in thinking though that the small PCI Express x1 slot will take a sound card?

[Road2Ruin]

It will. You just need to make sure that the one you buy is for that sort of slot as they are not interchangeable between PCI and PCI express. An ordinary PCI one would do though and may be cheaper.

[Jinx]

For HD playback something like a Radeon HD 4550 passively cooled would be a better solution http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/it...
or the newer HD 5450 http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/it...
I would also look to getting a low powered cpu and maybe set up passive cooling solution (one to the core 2 Q8200s or 8300s don't run particularly hot but even an atom might be powerful enough for a media PC) .
That coupled with solid state HDs should make it pretty much silent.

[N10k]

newer HD 5450
So that will be fine Jinx?

all i have are my DVDs in MKV format and some BlueRay Rips

[Jinx]

N10k said:

newer HD 5450
So that will be fine Jinx?

all i have are my DVDs in MKV format and some BlueRay Rips

I play hd files through my HD 4550 at 1600x1050 with no problems at all (no skipping etc.) I would expect the HD5450 to have similar performance (same number of stream processors) but as it's on a 40nm die it should run cooler (my hd4550 gets up to 75C at full load - again though passively cooled so there's no rise in noise levels). Review of the 5450 here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5450...
and here extolling it's bluray playback abilities http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/graphics-cards/3552...

[Fastra]

If you're primarily wanting to access films, photos and music then get an external hard drive and £18 (with code cyclone30) gets you this:


http://www.memorybits.co.uk/shop/movie-&amp-me...

Edited by Fastra on Friday 23 April 14:08