Thought/suggestions on build please.

[kyle32288]

The idea is to have a very quiet and energy efficient PC which will be used as a HTPC in the room where I sleep. Additionally I would like it to be able to play modern games at a reasonable resolution on low-med settings at 30fps+. It will also be used to occasional run multiple VM's (as many as 5) for the purpose of testing/training (I work in IT and am studying for several MS certs). Other then that it will be used for general purpose computing, possibly some occasional light video editing/encoding.

Because I am trying to keep this PC silent and energy efficient I would like to stick to a 45w cpu and passively cooled gpu if at all possible.

Case-Antec Sonata III 500 Quiet Super Mid Tower ATX Case ($120)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QA ... PDKIKX0DER

PSU-EarthWatts 500-watt power supply unit (Comes with case)
http://www.amazon.com/Antec-EA-500-ATX- ... 227&sr=1-2

Board-ASRock 970 EXTREME3 AMD 970 & SB950 ATX DDR3 800 AMD - AM3+ Motherboard ($85)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005PO ... PDKIKX0DER

CPU-Athlon II x4 605E ($80)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004BT ... 4HB43UEDVL

GPU- AMD Radeon HD7750 Ultimate Edition ($125)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007M8 ... PDKIKX0DER

RAM- 8GB (2GBX4) Mushkin Essentials DDR3 (Already Have)

HDD- WD Caviar Green 1TB WD10EARX ($100
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053Y ... PDKIKX0DER

Will add one additional fan to case- Nexus 120MM Silent Case Fan ($14)
http://www.amazon.com/Nexus-120mm-PWM-S ... 025&sr=8-5

Total- Right about $550

All suggestions are appreciated.

[TherealYeno]

Choices seem decent though have you thought about using an i3-2100t? its TDP is 35W so even lower but it is at least as powerful as that AMD CPU.

[SauceBoss]

here going for AMD apu is a good choice, its aint that strong but offers DX 11 support with good capabilities and very low tdp . i say wait for the new TRINITY APU to come out and get the A10 or jsut go for current gen A8.

[kyle32288]

Hmm I hadn't even considered the A8's that might be an idea. It would certainly bring the cost down a bit. I do not think it would make much of a difference in noise level or power consumption. Does anyone have experience in gaming with the APU's? I am not a graphics junky by any means. But I would like to be able to play some of the newer games without it looking like a slide show. Between the I3 and the Athlon II x4 I did do a good bit of research and debating, and it seems like some applications do really benefit from four physical cores, also the Athlon is a few bucks cheaper, and doesn't do anything significantly worse then the i3 from what I see.

[kyle32288]

Wow just watched some video's of game play on the a8 3870k oc'd I have to say I am kind of impressed. For and igp that thing looks pretty powerful.

[SauceBoss]

yea those apu offer great power in a very small form factor,
also the computing part in that apu is very similar to the athlon II x4 (some might say its the same one) so i think its a great choice, also the new 3870k offers overclocking in a very simple way so its a good bargin.

[TherealYeno]

The problem with the high end Llanos is they have a 100W TDP. I think the Llanos are great for HTPC but I think the lower end ones work better for that. I would be worried about the heat in your case and noise. Also there is no way you would want to OC a HTPC that you are looking to keep quiet.

[kyle32288]

Well 100W from combined CPU and GPU does not seem much different then my situation before where I had a 45w and what I would imagine is at least 50-60w on the GPU. That is a good point concerning the OC'ing. However from what I am seeing there are a good deal of people with substantial overclocks with little to no voltage tweaking and on stock cooling. The question is, is the GPU going to generate significantly more heat when overclocked by a couple 100mhz then I would get from having that passively cooled discrete graphics card sitting in there?

Thanks for the input so far btw.