$750 AM2
Part |
Model |
Price |
Case
|
CPU
|
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ |
88
|
|
Motherboard
|
Asus M2A-VM HDMI |
125
|
|
RAM
|
2GB Kingston DDR2-667 |
116
|
|
Hard Drive
|
500GB Samsung Spinpoint SATA |
154
|
|
Optical Drive
|
18x Pioneer DVR-212D SATA |
46
|
|
Graphics Card
|
Onboard from motherboard |
-
|
|
Case
|
Antec NSK-2400 |
136
|
|
Power Supply
|
Antec 380W High Efficiency included in Case |
-
|
|
Cooling
|
- |
-
|
|
TV Tuner Card
|
Twinhan VisionPlus VP3020C TV Tuner Card |
72
|
|
Additional
|
- |
-
|
|
Total Cost
|
- |
737 + Postage
|
$1000 Core 2 Duo
Part |
Model |
Price |
Case
|
CPU
|
Core 2 Duo E4300 |
155
|
|
Motherboard
|
Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD |
148
|
|
RAM
|
2GB Kingston DDR2-667 |
116
|
|
Hard Drive
|
500GB Samsung Spinpoint SATA |
154
|
|
Optical Drive
|
Asus 1814BLT SATA drive - comes with MPEG decoder suitable for MCE |
59
|
|
Graphics Card
|
256MB 7600GT w/HDTV |
136
|
|
Case
|
Antec NSK-2400 |
136
|
|
Power Supply
|
Antec 380W High Efficiency included in Case |
-
|
|
Cooling
|
- |
-
|
|
TV Tuner Card
|
Twinhan VisionPlus VP3020C TV Tuner Card |
72
|
|
Additional
|
- |
-
|
|
Total Cost
|
- |
976 + Postage
|
For MCE and Vista with analogue TV or a Foxtel/Optus box, the Hauppauge PVR150 is ideal. If you want to do DVB TV, get the Nova-T 500MCE as it has dual tuners - both of these cards are low-profile or standard height. For MythTV under Linux, the AverMedia A777 is natively supported - see www.linuxtv.org for more cards.