HTPC hardware questions (again)

[kc10boom]

I have a plan to use the following to use as a HTPC

ASUS M2A-VM board
AMD Athlon X2 6000+ 3.0GHz
4GB memory
Windows 8
Intel 80GB SATA II SSD
Glen Fiddich 15 year
650GB Seagate for media
TMT 5.x
LiteOn blu-ray
H2O cooling, quiet fans, etc

plugged into a Yamaha receiver with HDMI and a Panasonic Viera 54" 3DTV. Everything goes through the receiver.

The only thing I'm wondering about is I'll probably need something like a GT430 card because the MB has no HDMI out and the CPU graphics are the Radeon X1250.

The AMD CPU should be good enough to run everything, correct?

[barnabas1969]

Water + electricity = bad idea.

If you want long term reliability, go with air cooling. You can do it quietly, and you won't have the risk of water leaking into your PC.

[adam1991]

Well, you're equipping yourself appropriately if you're going Win8.

Aren't you going to want a bigger media drive? I mean, 2TB is only $100....

[duncane]

I see you've listed Glenfiddich 15 year old. I stay in the town where the Distillery is and can confirm this will have no effect on the performance of your HTPC unless you drink it before you build.

[kc10boom]

I have a 80GB SSD for the OS and main apps, 650GB internal, and 1TB WD external . I'm a play and delete person and don't collect movies so I think I'm good on storage. The scotch is for dealing with any hardware problems.

That AMD CPU is 4 years old and still does a great job as a media server. Windows 8 performed great on it with a regular platter drive. It seems like AMD CPUs haven't performed as well since the Phenom years