3. CPU And Cooler

My first thought was to base the system on Intel's Pentium M processor. I had heard great things about its potential power and thermal superiority and since it was designed to function in the confined space of a laptop, I figured it would be cake to cool in a roomier PC. Since the motherboards that supported the Pentium M were scarce and very expensive, there weren't many people using them. I was frustrated that I wasn't able to find much beyond rumors and speculation regarding the use of Pentium M's in an HTPC.

Eventually I came across this article. While I was pleased to finally be able to read about a Pentium M being used in an HTPC, the results were very disappointing. After a one-hour stress test the little Pentium M 765 had reached 194° F (90° C). To be fair, Intel's maximum-rated temperature for the 765 is 212° F (100° C), but with so much heat being generated by the CPU, my case temperature would definitely be higher than expected. I had planned on using as many fan-less components as possible and I couldn't afford to use an overly hot processor.

I pulled the Pentium M out of the running and went back to the age-old question. Intel or AMD? The new 90-nm Athlon 64 processors offered superior cooling and power consumption benchmarks compared to Intel desktop processors at the time, but Intel has always had an advantage over AMD with multi-media processing. After deliberating about it for weeks I decided to use an Athlon 64. I had recently built a gaming rig with an Athlon 64 3800+ and was amazed at how easy it was to cool. I admit that I was a little sensitive about cooling, as I was still dealing with my sorry little MEGA180 HTPC and the lure of a frosty processor was greater than the prospect of waiting a few more minutes for a video to encode.

I settled on an Athlon 64 3700+ single core processor. The dual-core Athlons were available when I bought it, but they still weren't cost effective in the range that I was looking for. It wasn't difficult to decide to use a Zalman cooler for this build. Zalman has a long track record for silent and very efficient cooling. I went with the CNPS7000B-CU because I wanted to be sure that I would have enough space in my case. Besides, the performance difference between the 120 mm CNPS7700 and the smaller 92 mm CNPS7000B-CU is negligible and the CNPS 7000B is supposed to be slightly quieter.