advice for HTPC build?

[fliesatnight]

First time taking a shot at building a PC and I'm hoping to get some recommendations for components and general suggestions for doing this.

So far I think I've decided on the nMEDIAPC 6000B case, Intel i7-2600K, this Lite-On DVD drive, this Samsung HDD, and either the GeForce GTX 570 HD or the Radeon HD 6970 2GB (I've been looking through the Dolphin wiki trying to figure out whether games are more likely to run smoothly on Nvidia cards or AMD cards... it's hard to say but I might be leaning towards an AMD card?) I think I'll probably go for 8 gb of Kingston or Corsair ram.

Mainly I'm looking for advice on motherboard, power supply, and cpu cooling. I did notice this thread from December about building an HTPC with the nMEDIAPC 6000B and I saw recommendations for the P67 or Z68, are these motherboards good choices to use with the processor and video cards I'm interested in?

I definitely want to overclock to at least 4.5GHz so I need a cooler that will fit in a 6.6" high case. One newegg customer confirms that the Noctua NH-C14 will fit so I'm leaning towards that one, but it seems like the less expensive Coolermaster GeminII S would do the job as well.

I haven't had a chance to look into power supplies much yet so any recommendations are welcome.

Thanks

[So Shellfish]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102954
This graphics card can easily be unlocked to a 6970 (enable disabled shaders), and even if that doesn't work out for you it's a much better buy than a 6970. As far as motherboards go, any ATX motherboard (socket 1155 of course) should work with your system. Although, a Micro ATX motherboard might be nice to reduce clutter. There really won't be much difference in performance between motherboards, but if I were to recommend a PSU, I'd recommend this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016

It's modular (reduces clutter), efficient, well reviewed, and has enough power to run your config no problem. If you're going for 4.5GHz, the Noctua CPU cooler is probably your best bet. In an HTPC case with poor ventilation, you'll need all the surface area you can get.

For a motherboard, I'd recommend this as an ATX board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157253

And if you want something a bit smaller (and a bit more expensive):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131806

Hope that helps.

[fliesatnight]

Thanks for those suggestions, that PSU looks like a good choice. Since the nMEDIAPC case is large enough I was planning to go with a full size ATX board rather than a micro ATX board. The ASRock Fatal1ty looks good but it seems to be less popular than other P67 and Z68 boards on newegg... price aside, is there any reason to go with the Fatal1ty over something like the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO which has hundreds of reviews and a customer choice award?

[NaturalViolence]

Quote:price aside, is there any reason to go with the Fatal1ty over something like the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO which has hundreds of reviews and a customer choice award?

You mean other than the fact that that product has been deactivated?

I would also recommend the 2500K over the 2600K since it's a lot cheaper and you won't be using HT anyways.

[fliesatnight]

Thanks for the reply, after doing lots of reading about these components over the last few days I decided to go with the 2600K and the P8Z68-V PRO. The Asus motherboard was actually in stock at newegg just a few days ago and I managed to grab one of the last few from an amazon seller.

I've mostly turned my attention to trying to understand BIOS settings and overclocking with this motherboard. It seems one benefit of picking such a popular motherboard/processor combo is that it's pretty easy to find specific instructions for overclocking on sites like hardforum.com and overclock.net, although it looks like there are very different opinions on what the optimal BIOS settings are so I guess to an extent it's something you just have to figure out for yourself.