Ongoing My 500.00 US$ HTPC (1 Viewer)

elconejito

Portal Pro
April 28, 2005
164
5
Falls Church, VA
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
I wrote all the stuff below before realizing this thread is *old* :). I leave it in incase it may help somebody else in the future...

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I have a DFI RS482 Infinity (are these similar/same?) which has what you are looking for. It is true, there are not many that fit those specifications. I put a post about my system on the forum here. I have mine hooked up to a 32" CRT by S-Video. The sound is currently just playing thru the TV speakers, but eventually it will have a surround setup and it has optical out (but not in). It supports 7.1 surround. If you have any questions about the board, let me know I'd be happy to answer them.

Regarding the hardware...
Hard drives - On newegg the prices for a 200gb ($60) and 250GB ($65) were very similar. In that case, I would choose the 250GB since the 200GB drives are usually very short-stroked and you would get less performance. And the extra 50GB comes in handy when recording a lot of TV. If you want to go really budget, I'd recommend the Samsung 160GB (or another 160GB) for about $50. The best sizes (generally) for hard drives is 80GB, 160GB, 320GB and 500GB. I would go with SATA, but for purposes of a media PC it doesn't really matter if its SATA1, SATA2 or IDE, so whatever you find that fits the budget should be more than adequate.

Processor - Again, if your trying to stay budget I think you have to go with AMD in a single core like the Athlon 64. The 3200+ and 3400+ are selling for about $50 right now (without heatsink). If you can break the bank, then get an Intel CoreDuo.

Video card - If you don't get onboard video, I like Nvidia cards. If you are trying to stay *really* low budget you can get a passively cooled 6200 for like $30. If you can spend some $$$ then I'd upgrade to the 7600GT and up as those support ALL of the PureVideo features, but cost $110 and up. Most of the 7600GT cards come with fans tho, so if silence is your goal (doesn't seem to be) then this may not be good for you.

TV Tuner card - I have a Hauppage PVR-150 which is decent enough, but I think others here can give you better recommendations

I like Samsung, Pioneer, Lite-On, NEC. From newegg, there are a ton under $50. Make sure you get one that comes with software. Usually that means getting a retail box, but some of the OEMs come with software too (altho less and less nowadays).
 

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