Specs for Bitperfect HTPC with Win7 & JR Media Center 14 & M-Audio Audiophile USB

[neovibe]

Dear all,

 

Now that my PC as died I need to set up a new one and I confess I am pretty lost in terms of how many cores I want and wether I need DDR3 blablabla.... you get the point, so I really need some guidance to spec the machine. Gone are the days when I knew the cpu offerings back and forth

 

Currently I have an M-Audio USB Audiophile and use JR Media Center 12 for playback via ASIO.

 

My objective is to get bit-perfect out from windows 7 and JR Media Center 14 and the M-Audio Audiophile USB, using a very silent, modestly specced HTPC I have read about win7 & JRMC14 but not about a usb card with these... any idea on whether this will work bit-perfect?

 

I plan on using it mostly via an iphone as a remote for JRMC14 so this HTPC will be used for music playback, library organizing and some websurfing and downloads, nothing else, not even video, so the processing requirements are pretty low.

 

Another requirement is silence: fanless mainboard, fanless graphics card (integrated or not, you tell me) and fanless CPU (that's right, just a good heatsink) - no high performance cpu required.

Case is an Antec Solo, suspended hard-drives, 120mm fan and very, very good airflow (trust me).

 

So I'm looking for CPU, mainboard, RAM, graphics card (?) recommendations. Thanks in advance, I'm quite lost on this...

 

[timztunz]

Would you consider a laptop? During the past month I've set up something very similar to what you're talking about using an HP dv6 Duo Core Win7 (64 bit with 6GB RAM). I'm extremely pleased with the result. IMHO you will greatly appreciate the sonic improvement in using WASAPI with Win 7 than ASIO. I wouldn't be surprised if you can buy this laptop for less than the parts you're looking for. I don't know where you are located but Best Buy has had some VERY aggressive pricing on these laptops.

 

[neovibe]

I have considered a laptop but for that it would be a macbook pro... bit perfect out of the box, the move to itunes would be complicated but achievable and would simplify the sync with ipod/iphone.

 

However, the PC upgrade is less than a third of a 13" macbook pro (let alone the 15" I was looking at) because I only need CPU, memory, mainboard and a regular internal harddrive. Also, no library conversion effort on my part

 

I am looking forward to try WASAPI and compare to ASIO. Hope WASAPI works OK with an M-Audio USB card...

 

So, any recomendations on hardware? Currently looking at Intel Core i3 entry level, 4gb memory, Asus H55 mainboard (integrated graphic on the CPU, Full HD out from the mainboard)