When building your first HTPC, you want to know for sure if these parts are compatible.
Unfortunately, I’ve faced several compatibility issues building HTPCs.
For example, I bought a passive power supply that was a bit longer than a standard ATX PSU, so I was not able to use my case’s hot swap drive cage at all.
Another example is when I bought a very nice passive cooled graphics card, but it did not fit inside my case because it was slightly higher than regular cards due to its passive cooling solution.
A third example is that even though the mini-ITX case was supposed to support the CPU cooler height, the CPU cooler was too wide and did not fit inside the case.
I strongly recommend to do a compatibility check for all of your parts:
- The motherboard supports selected CPU chipset
- The size of the PSU is compatible with the case
- The PSU is powerful enough for the system
- The aftermarket CPU cooler will fit inside the case
- The memory cards fit next to the CPU cooler
- The graphics card is not too long or tall
- The larger capacity 2.5” HDD fits if the case only supports 2.5”