OT: Anyone know anything about home theater PCs?

[hockeybike]

I'm building one up to watch tv as I ride my trainer (yes, it's 70F out, no I can't ride a bike for 7 more weeks as I rehab a shoulder injury).

Anyway, this is what I'm planning on going with:

ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor
Kingston HyperX 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
Antec MicroFusion Remote 350 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Total cost is about 340 with fans, maybe 395 if i get this cool lenovo paddle remote thing that i can shove in my cycling jersey pocket.

Needs to be able to stream HD video (NHL gamecenter, mostly) and whatever else I throw at it, but no gaming or anything of that nature. Any advice on a on a way i can spend less on this thing (and thus more on bikes), or where I need to spend more is much appreciated.

Thanks!

[rice rocket]

That's quite overbuilt for what you want. NVIDIA ION nettops (basically netbook minus LCD) can stream 1080p, and those are 1.6 GHz with very little RAM backing it up. The GPU acceleration reduces the CPU requirements a lot.

[Dekonick]

That's quite overbuilt for what you want. NVIDIA ION nettops (basically netbook minus LCD) can stream 1080p, and those are 1.6 GHz with very little RAM backing it up. The GPU acceleration reduces the CPU requirements a lot.

What he said. You can also use Ubuntu and MythTV for your operating system and media software. Windows is purdy, but doesn't play nice with all formats.

It used to be really complicated to get a working mythbox... now it is pretty much plug n play.

FWIW - SOON there will be a cablecard network tuner from homerun. Look it up!

Good luck!

IF you haven't purchased anything, do look at the ION based nettops. Save you a bunch of $$ and work great for a dedicated media PC.

Just an example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107072

[hockeybike]

Hmm, i forgot to mention that I want to have the option to put a blu-ray player in here, as well as used as a hub for music which is why i'm going with the HTPC instead of a nettop or one of those jetway pcs (saw em, too). If I go with an intel atom motherboard/cpu/gpu combo, the lowest i've seen is about 140, which is a slight savings from the amd motherboard/cpu/fan purchase, but not a ton.

Any other places I can save money, or were you guys mostly suggesting a different form factor because of the fact that outside of blu-ray expandability, I won't use most of what's on this thing.

One thing to note--Gamecenter is flash based...ie, resource hog.

[Dekonick]

You want a high efficiency power supply, and proc/mobo combo that are power friendly - that is why the atom proc's are often in HTPC's. THe advantage to ion is it will do 1080p, and not burn up too much juice. Remember this PC will be on most of the time...

[hockeybike]

Hmm...how about this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107076

Cheaper, same cpu/video. Probably costs about 300 once I add in a hdd/memory, so not much cheaper than the htpc setup i had going if i opt for a cheaper 150w case.

All that said, it won't be on for more than a few hours a day. Basically just getting it for the next few months and then obviously random TV watching, but once the weather is nice that goes downhill.

[Dekonick]

Sure - that works.