Power and cooling

Cooling

Zalman CNPS7700-Cu - $45.99 Newegg: We’ve been big fans on Zalman’s CPU coolers for quite awhile now. If you look through our archives, you’ll find quite a few system builds that featured Zalman cooling. So why go with the Zalman CPNS9500 LED you ask? First we’ll explain why you’ll want to replace the stock AMD cooler with a premium heatsink/fan unit before we go over the features of the Zalman cooler.

While AMD’s stock heatsink/fan unit that they ship with their retail processors nowadays is quite robust, sporting heatpipes and a copper base, it still isn’t what we’d classify as a powerful cooling solution. It gets the job done all right, but at times it has to crank up the fan’s RPMs in order to keep the processor adequately cooled. This is okay if noise isn’t an issue to you, but in an HTPC, most users are going to want their system to run as quietly as possible at all times, even under load when the processor is being pushed its hardest.

In order to accomplish this with a fairly speedy processor you’re going to need an aftermarket cooler, the stock AMD heatsink/fan unit doesn’t quite cut it (although again, it is a nice improvement over the stock heatsink/fan units AMD used in the early Athlon days).

This is where Zalman’s CNPS7700-CU comes in. The cooler is quite powerful, available in both all-copper and copper/aluminum combos if you want to save a little money. The key is that it does all this while running quietly. Zalman includes their FanMate fan controller with the cooler, allowing you to manually adjust the fan’s RPMs based on your preferences. You can mount the FanMate controller to the outside of your case for easy access.

Alternatives: There are lots of good alternatives to Zalman’s . For starters there’s the aluminum/copper combo cooler that Zalman manufactures, the CNPS7700-AlCu. Thermaltake, Silverstone, and many others also make good CPU coolers. We’re a little partial to Zalman though since we’ve had so much success with their products in the past. In fact, NVIDIA enlisted the help of Zalman for their reference cooling for the nForce 590 SLI kits. To help combat noise even further, it may not be a bad idea to pair your Zalman or other brand CPU cooler with a good aftermarket VGA cooler.

Power supply unit

OCZ ModStream 550W - $79.99 Newegg: When working in a smaller environment like the confines of an HTPC case, it’s important that airflow remains as unobstructed as possible. This ensures that the system’s components are adequately cooled. This is why you’ll want a modular power supply like OCZ’s ModStream line. With the ModStream, you can pick and choose which power cables you want running inside your system, plugging in the cables you need today, and saving the others for powering devices you may install in the future. This keeps the amount of excess cables running inside your system down to a minimum. OCZ includes the following cables with the ModStream:

Two peripheral 4-pin connectors (2 of these type of cables are included)

One peripheral 4-pin and one floppy disk drive connector (1 of these type of cables are included)

One peripheral 4-pin connector (1 of these type of cables are included)

One PCI Express 6-pin connector for hooking up to a PCI-E graphics card (1 of these type of cables are included)

Two Serial ATA connections (1 of these type of cables are included)

Each of these power cables features copper-shielded power leads which are also specially sheathed, this delivers cleaner power. OCZ then adds clear plastic tubing on top of this. For added flair, the cables glow in a light shade of blue when used with UV lighting.

The ModStream features very solid construction, and is decked out with a mirror finish and blue LEDs. For cooling, OCZ uses one 120mm fan which acts as an intake fan, sucking up the hot air within your case and expels it out the back of the PSU, which consists of one large grille. The fan runs quietly as well. Finally, as an added touch, the PSU also ships with extra zip ties and Velcro strips for bundling everything together. While the ModStream doesn’t feature adjustable rails like OCZ’s PowerStream line of PSUs, OCZ provides plenty of power on each rail for all of the latest high-end hardware. We’ve had no problems running a pair GeForce cards in SLI or ATI’s latest X1900 XTX CrossFire setups on our ModStream power supplies.

Conclusion
So there you have it, our take on some of the best components out there for an HTPC build. While they got off to a slow start, home theater PCs are quickly becoming all the rage among PC enthusiasts. Both AMD and Intel have noticed this, offering their Viiv and Live initiatives to cater to this burgeoning market.

Once an enterprising motherboard manufacturer develops an AM2 motherboard with HTPC applications in mind, we definitely wouldn’t hesitate to move over to one of AMD’s energy efficient Athlon 64 processors for upcoming HTPC builds. They sell for a slight premium over more conventional AMD processors, but the lower power they generate is probably well worth it. Intel really won’t have an effective alternative to this until Conroe debuts in a little over a month.

On the graphics side, the biggest disappointment is probably the continuing lack of support for HDCP among most graphics cards. With HD-DVD and Blu-Ray really set to take off over the course of this year, it’s important that the PC graphics industry catches up to the home theater market and starts rolling HDCP protection into their devices as soon as possible, even if the movie industry doesn’t require it for full resolution playback until later this decade (this is a proposal that’s been floating out there to ease the transition into these new formats).

Once the industry works through these growing pains, the media center PC will be really poised to take off, particularly once Windows Vista ships next year. Microsoft’s media center plans for Windows Vista are pretty ambitious, not only will the new OS include Cablecard support for digital cable users, Microsoft has also signed on with digital satellite provider DirecTV. Once these features are rolled into Vista, life should be much easier for prospective digital cable and satellite HTPC users who would like to integrate their media center PCs into their existing home theater system. Right now getting Windows Media Center to work for these users is a clunky process that really can be a frustrating experience. In a matter of months, the hassle of getting your HTPC to control your cable box and thus record your favorite television programs automatically will be seamless.

With the imminent release of Vista and HD-DVD and Blu-Ray drives for PCs, the home theater PC is on the brink for a huge up tick in sales. The HTPC we’ve presented for you today should be more than capable of handling these technologies and performing with aplomb. Now if ATI and NVIDIA can just get the whole HDCP fiasco sorted out…