Building a media PC

[Gadiantor]

It has been about a decade since I've built a computer myself, so I figured I'd give it a go with a media PC.

I'm thinking of going with an ATX desktop case (something media center ish), micro ATX motherboard (though I've found a couple of cases that will work that will take an ATX), AMD 64, a dual tuner, and a Terabyte raid running MS XP Media Edition.

Since I haven't done this sort of thing in awhile I'm sure I could use some advice. Anyone built a media PC and have some lessons learned to pass on?

[Leshrak]

How much are you looking to spend? Take a look at the post that Zyth made about building a computer. ..

Latest and greatest.. if you have no limit on money, I'd go with a dual-core 64 bit processor, a sli motherboard (dual geforce 7800gtx cards... drool), 4gb patriot ram... those components alone would probably run you in the neighborhood of $2k. Then you'll be looking for the HDs, dvd burner, tuner card, etc..

[Gadiantor]

I haven't decided how much I want to spend yet, but since I'll be using it on my TV the video card performance isn't a huge concern, nor is processing speed. We'll be using it as a DVR and to watch DVDs and listen to music. The only impressive part of the setup should be the amount of storage. I'm wanting to put most of our movies on the computer and set up an HTML thumbnailed index so the kids can pick the movie they want to watch.

If I wanted to make an extreme gaming machine I'd be all about the dual core and uber video card and 4G of ram. I think that would end up being overkill for this project though.

[Pae]

For a Media PC one thing you will also want to consider is noise level. Having a massive cooling fan system for your uber PC will generate a lot of white noise.

Personally, for something simple/easy to build a nice portable media pc I would suggest a Barebones Shuttle system.

It uses something called an XPC form factor. Meaning its smaller than MicroATX. However, you'll only get 2 slots for ram, and likely only room for one hard drive (I'm sure you can squeeze a second in there with the right tweaking).

The pros however, its small and sleek. It's quiet. And from the sounds of what you want it to do. It'll certainly get the job done.

Shuttle

[Gadiantor]

Thanks Elvion! If I go with network attached storage the hard drive limitation isn't an issue. I'm also considering external hard drives, so my media would be portable. Lots of options to price out and wiegh!

I've been making sure I price things out with low noise fans and keeping heat down to keep the fans running low is also part of my plan. I haven't looked at liquid cooling at all...that might just be overkill.

[Katidyd]

You dont need to build your own to store and watch movies. Just buy lots of external hard drives. I have all my cd/music and dvd/movies uncompressed on hard drive and they take up a good amount of space. If you want to be editing then building one will be worth the effort.

[Gadiantor]

Originally posted by Katidyd
You dont need to build your own to store and watch movies. Just buy lots of external hard drives. I have all my cd/music and dvd/movies uncompressed on hard drive and they take up a good amount of space. If you want to be editing then building one will be worth the effort.

If I wanted to go cheap I would just get a USB TV tuner and some external storage and use the DVD burner on our new laptop, but I'd rather have one system dedicated to being our PVR and to burn DVD home movies on. If I wanted to go the external route I could do it for like $500, but I want something that will look nice on my entertainment center.

[Gadiantor]

After playing with the parts list on newegg.com for a few days this is where I'm at. It changes daily, but I think I'm getting closer to a cost effecient solution that I can expand on if I want to.

COOLER MASTER CAV-T04-UWC Silver Aluminum/Steel ATX Desktop Computer Case 350W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: CAV-T04-UWC

BIOSTAR TForce4U Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: TForce4U

connect3D 3034 Radeon X550 256MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Model #: 3034

Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE White box PCI Interface Tuner Card - Retail
Model #: 1081

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA3800BVBOX - Retail
Model #: ADA3800BVBOX

Patriot Signature 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model PSD2G400KH - Retail
Model #: PSD2G400KH

Maxtor MaxLine III 7V300F0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: 7V300F0

Microsoft Windows XP Media Center 2005 Single Pack - OEM
Model #: M93-00091

Airnet AWD154 PCI 802.11G Fast 54mb wireless PCI card - Retail
Model #: AWD154