Help with frist HTPC building

[wolva]

Hello friends!

I was reading about HTPC and i'm interesting in build my own HTPC, but i dont know if it have more advantage from "comercial HTPC, like WDTV, Zbox"

My objectives to HTPC is view my movies/series in my LED TV in FullHD without freeze

Reading about it, i had idea to build this specs:

Motherboard -> Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3
Memory -> Patriot G Series Sector 5 8Gb
CPU -> Intel Core I3-2100T 35W
Cooler -> COOLER MASTER DP6-9EDSA-0L-GP CPU Cooler
Power Supply -> Corsair CX430 V2
HD -> Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARX 2TB


Reading more, I became interested in APU's but i saw the performace is less than Intel core i3

Reading more and more, I saw that Intel Core i3 maybe is the best solution for me but I made some modification on start config, like this:

Mobo -> ASRock Z68M-ITX/HT
Memory -> G.SKILL NS 4GB 1333mhz F3-10600CL9D-4GBNS
CPU -> I3-2100T 35W
Cooler - COOLER MASTER DP6-9EDSA-0L-GP CPU Cooler
Power Supply -> Corsair CX430 V2
HD -> Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARX 2TB

Now, maybe you can help me with some questions:

Its better a custom HTPC or a HTPC like Zotac Zbox?
AMD Fusion or Intel Atom it's enough?
The i3 specs can be more cheap and have better performance?
XBMC is the best or have others better?
It's good a remote control?
OS, Linux or Windows? I have skills on both.

Thank you so much for the help, and sorry for many questions.

[keith_h]

Read this: http://www.htpcforums.com/index.php?showtopic=5876

It answers your questions.

Some personal observations, lower power AMD A6 APU is plenty powerful enough and quiet with the stock cooler. In testing my A6 box CPU is 20 degrees C in operation with low CPU and memory utilisation. You actually need less resource than expected. Integrated APU graphics designed for video which is an important consideration.

4G RAM is plenty and it doesn't need to be fancy or expensive. Do get an SSD for the boot drive as the device turns on and off almost instantly.

I bought the case with the integrated iMon and remote and it was a good call. I went win7 but customised heavily. It works just fine.

I looked at the Atom box solutions and Atom is less powerful and generally lacking in the graphics department. I think custom is better in many situations as you can get exactly what you need for a start.