Budget HTPC Build

[Celrond]

Just wanted some feedback on a list I put together for a HTPC build for a friend. It's based on the Llano APU. Goal was to stay in the $400 price range. He will use this as his Media Center, ie movies, music, streaming, surfing, email etc. There will be no overclocking. Perhaps some moderate gaming.

A6 3500 Triple Core I could go with a unlocked Quad for just $10 more, but I felt more comfortable with the 65W rating of the triple core than the 100W for the quad in terms of heat inside a HTPC case.

ASRock A75M FM1 Micro ATX OR ASRock A75M-ITX FM1 I can't see any difference between the two boards, other than one is ITX and the other is MicroATX and a marginal price difference

G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage 2 x 4GB

hec Black Micro ATX HTPC Case w/ 300W Power Supply

LG Black SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive UH12LS29 I realize this is "only" 1st gen SATA, but it should still work ok

WD Caviar Blue 500GB WD5000AAKX (possible variation: 60GB SSD as boot drive and use his existing external 1TB hdd for storage)

ZALMAN CNPS8900 Extreme really not sure about this one as it seems to be a tight fit with the RAM. Thoughts? Alternatives? Also, I'd probably stick with stock heat-sink for the triple core, so aftermarket cooler would only be a consideration if I was to go with the quad core, if needed even then.

Thoughts?

[ashland_thunder]

you don't need that much horsepower to run a media computer. I have an LG BluRay player, and an old Athlon 7750 UNDERCLOCKED to 2.3Ghz. 4 gigs of ram, on an MSI 785 chipset based motherboard. Plays BluRays just fine.
If anything I'd spend some money on getting at least a Bronze rated power supply to be more efficient

[powerarmour]

I agree, even just a AMD Brazos m-ITX board would probably suffice, though it might be worth putting in a slightly better GPU than the onboard for gaming. But otherwise it's fine for the rest of the standard HTPC tasks.

[Celrond]

Thanks for your input!

I tweaked the list somewhat and came across a Brazos/ Fusion platform. Think I might be going with this one although I'd "only" be saving about $40.

As for RAM, I ditched the G.Skill Sniper from my original list and will be replacing it with low profile RAM. I figured there probably is not much point spending the extra money on low voltage RAM. I am also considering going with 4GB rather than 8GB but would like to hear some arguments.

REPLACED: the case/ PSU combo from above with a Silverstone MILO and an Antec 380W EarthWatts. Main reason was to go with a better PSU (again, thanks for the input) and a case that provides better airflow.

As for hard drive, I am thinking of putting in an OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3. Those can be had for around $50 these days but I've heard/ read many negative things about the drives causing problems such BSOD's down the road, although their overall rating seems pretty decent - it seems to be a draw of luck whether you get your hands on one that works or not.

And I am abandoning the idea of an aftermarket CPU heatsink altogether.

[ashland_thunder]

VERY good PSU choice. I have one in an extra machine at home, and it is powering an ASUS geforce 9800GTX+. It only has 1 pci-e connector so I had to use an adapter on 2 molexes to get a 2nd PCI-e. Has never blinked.
For memory I think you should get something with tight timings. I didn't look at the memory you chose, but I've read that for that platform lower timings are better.