HTPC

Latest revision as of 01:39, 17 March 2010

Whirlpool has a list of more HTPC Systems here

[edit] $750 AMD

Part	Model	Price	Case
CPU	AMD Athlon 64 X2 BE-2350 (45W)	108
Motherboard	Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H	114
RAM	2GB Kingston DDR2-667	48
Hard Drive	500GB Samsung HD501LJ	115
Optical Drive	18x Pioneer DVR-212D SATA	35
Graphics Card	HD3200 Onboard	-
Case	Antec NSK-2400	122
Power Supply	Antec 380W High Efficiency included in Case	-
Cooling	-	-
TV Tuner Card	Twinhan VisionPlus VP3020C TV Tuner Card	49
Remote	MCE Remote and IR receiver	34
Total Cost	-	625 + Postage

[edit] $750 Intel

Part	Model	Price	Case
CPU	Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200	99
Motherboard	Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD	124
RAM	2GB Kingston DDR2-667	48
Hard Drive	500GB Samsung HD501LJ	115
Optical Drive	Asus 1814BLT SATA drive	39
Graphics Card	Onboard from motherboard	-
Case	Antec NSK-2400	122
Power Supply	Antec 380W High Efficiency included in Case	-
Cooling	-	-
TV Tuner Card	Twinhan VisionPlus VP3020C TV Tuner Card	49
Remote	MCE Remote and IR receiver	34
Total Cost	-	632 + 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.

Now that HD-DVD has capitulated, consider buying a Blu Ray drive instead of a DVD (Pioneer BDC-S02).

If using Linux you will probably want to stay with Nvidia rather than ATI

Nvidia
GT 240
GTS 250

ATI
Best Passive Cooled HTPC Video Card - HD5450
Best Low Profile HTPC Video Card - HD5570
Best HTPC Video Card - HD5670

[edit] More Links

• Audio Visual, Digital TV on your PC, MythTV, Sound Card, Windows XP DVB Tuner Setup, Windows MCE & Windows Media Center Edition, New System Recommendations