Advice for building a media center PC

[Josem]

ok. here's what i'm almost certainly decided upon:

after taking in advice, i've made the following changes:

same case as above.

power supply - 500w, same manufacturer, still quiet.

motherboard - ABIT F-I90HD Fatal1ty HDMI mATX LGA775 Mainboard - hdmi output, proper pcie16, 10/100/1000 gigabit lan (which may come in handy in the future if i'm shoving large files around). It doesn't have viiv, but I think i'm right to skip that.

i've done a little research, and it seems that a mATX motherboard should fit fine in an ATX case

same cpu as above

memory - Team Elite 5-5-5 PC2-6400 2GB DDR2 Kit (2x1024MB) DDR2-800MHz, 1.8v-1.9v, 2048MB - $135
the cheapest DDR2-800 memory available

hard disk - 400GB Samsung HD403LJ SATA II 3Gbs NCQ HDD - 7200rpm, 16MB Cache Spinpoint Series - $145
samsung hard disks get a good rep for being quiet; i have 160gb i can take out of my existing machine, and this is reasonably affordable too.

tv tuner - Compro VideoMate DVB-T & Analog PCI Express Card Real-Time H/W Encoding - $198 -
this one works on a PCIEx1 slot (keeping my PCI slot free for my extra video card) and does all the hardware processing, and can receive FM radio as well. this makes me happy.

O/S - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium DVD (OEM) 64-bit
this has the media centre stuff. in addition, it'll allow me to network easily, i'm familiar with it, and my poker stuff can run on it.

monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc., already got.

total cost, including construction, $A1278.

[LuckyTxGuy]

You might really want to do some research on Vista's Media Center capabilities. It might work just fine for you but I know at first there were a ton of complaints about it. Again, I haven't researched it much, but it might be worth really checking into.... I'd do some looking at places like thegreenbutton.com

I'm probably wrong, but again, it's woth checking into before you shell out the cash for Vista. I'm a huge Vista fan too by the way, I'm just not familiar with the changes to Media Center.

[NU Star]

Meh, don't pay for it.

I messed around with it a little on my mom's laptop. It wouldn't play my vids at first because of WMP not having the right codecs, but you can download a patch or whatever that will give you all the codecs to play whatever. I obviously didn't get to mess around with a lot of the other features like recording video though.

[ryanj247]

i've had XP MCE for years and Vista for almost a year. i highly recommend vista. the media center functionality in vista works fine, and overall vista is much less of a headache than XP.

[NU Star]

Ok, just finished my order. This is what I went with (+ anything I need no here I've already mentioned). Hope it all works together nicely.



1

SILVERSTONE SST-LC16S-M Silver Aluminum front panel, 0.8 mm SECC body ATX Media Center / HTPC Desktop Computer Case - Retail
Item #: N82E16811163052

Standard Return Policy
$269.99
$239.99
1

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813128059

Standard Return Policy
$99.99
1

Koutech PCI to USB2.0 Card Model IO-PU520 - Retail
Item #: N82E16815104216

Standard Return Policy
$8.99
1

Rosewill Stallion Series RD400-2-SB ATX V2.2 400W Power Supply - Retail
Item #: N82E16817182074

Standard Return Policy
$36.99
1

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E4300 - Retail
Item #: N82E16819115013

Processors (CPUs) Return Policy
$117.00
1

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - Retail
Item #: N82E16820231098

Memory (Modules, USB) Return Policy
$109.99
$69.99
1

SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Item #: N82E16822152052

Limited 30-Day Return Policy
$119.99
$109.99
1

COOLER MASTER RR-LCH-P9E1 92mm UFO CPU Cooler - Retail
Item #: N82E16835103001

Standard Return Policy
$34.99