Building an HTPC

M

mut

Geek Trainee
Im building a media centre PC as my dad wants to be able to use the PC on one of our new HD TV screens we are getting.
I've been thinking about what to get for the system. Budget: £500
He said that he doesn't need a good graphics card for games, but I'm building the machine so it's not going to be up to him :)
And besides, it would be such a waste not to try out some games on a 40" LCD HD screen.

First off I need a good case. One that will fit in with the DVD player and home theater sound system. I had a look at an Antec case (comes with a 380W PSU).
Antec Fusion MATX MediaCenter Case

This leads me onto a question: If I do buy a graphics card for some light gaming, is 380W going to be enough to play on a 40" (or possibly 46") monitor?

Here's the rest that I came up with:

Core 2 Duo E6400 £147
Asrock Conroe945G-DVI £52.86
Corsair 1GB DDR2 667 MHz £70.99
Seagate 160GB HDD £36.72
Sony CRX320E Optical Drive £15.07

Including the case, that comes to £383.48

On top of this I need a Wireless network adapter (£20), I also need a good mouse + keyboard combo (wireless) with decent range - so we can sit on the couch with the PC in the corner of the room.
I also need a graphics card, for medium gaming (I won't be able to resist using that screen for a gaming session) and even my dad will have a go, im sure.

Would appreciate any thoughts and improvements on the system along with suggestions for a graphics card and the mouse + keyboard combo. And of course, the case, I'm looking for a good media PC case.
 
Ok.

GPU: OcUK GeForce 7900 GS 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Mous + Keyboard : Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail

7900GS graphics card, £117, good for games, its overclockers value, but still better than a 7600GS or GT, comes to about £500, so about £25 over budget with the keyboard, if you think the 7900GS is too much, you could always go for a 7600GT.

The case seems to be Ok for a media center PC, Clean and simple :), you dont want it to be in your face like some peoples tricked out rigs :p

I would reccomend your increase the budget anyway as your going to need a decent PSU, i dont think the 380w will do, it may be enough, but depends if its a cheap make, its the PSU is an Antec PSU then i would suspec it would be ok, thats if you got for the 7600GT card, but 7900GS could be ok too..

DVD-RW: ebuyer.com - Optical & Media » Optical Drives » DVD-RW Drives » Product details

I dont think a CD-RW/DVD ROM is a good thing for a Media center pc, i mean modern Home Entertainment systems come with with DVD-Recorders now :p. You never know, you may want to copy some of your faviourate programs onto DVD, so you dont fill up the HDD, maybe also consider upgrading HDD to 250GB?
 
I thought about a 250GB HDD and I like the thought, I have a 250GB HDD myself and I don't use much of it. But I suppose we would use a lot on a media centre.
Only thing is it eats away at the budget for a graphics card.
My dad won't go over £500, he doesn't think a fantastic graphics card is needed.
Thanks for the tip on the DVD drive, I'll change it to the Samsung.
 
Ok, about the Hard drive, High Quality recording, well Any video tends to eat loads of space!, tbh, i dont think these new DVD Recorders with 80GB HDD are good enough.

Ok, well i suggest maybe settling for a 7600GT, but then maybe you still will go over budget.

BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GS 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

7600GS, £75.

250GB HDD: (SATA) : Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A33423) £55

Dammmn, cant belive the Price of HDD's these days, makes me want a bigger one even more now!
 
Cant you possibly put in the extra £37 of your own money?, or convince your dad to put the extra in, i mean, with those extra, your only making it, mroe convinient for Video recording, good for the odd game, and nice if your want to watch something you taped in another room or perhaps on another computer, but for other computers you wont need to burn the recorded video, just send over network...

I also forgot to say in my first post on this thread, your system is going to be a really nice HTPC :good:, i wouldent mind something like that for my actual main pc :p

Good Look with building it :)
 
Actually I can probably convince him based on the fact that I'm including the keyboard, mouse and wireless network adapter.
So this system is good.

But. How far do these keyboards and mice tend to work from the PC? I would be looking for over 5m if possible you see.
 
I will have a look around for some more keyboards, Overclockers dont seem to have a good selection of Keyboard/Mouse Combos.

~~Edit** Found this: Logitech Rechargeable Cordless Desktop - Desktop Bundles - CCL Computers Seems nice, but problem is non of them seem to actually say how far they extend, i think most will go about 5M, i know my A4Tech Mouse goes about 6M and that was RF, and its not much of a good mouse and keyboard, so i suspect it those will be ok.
 
I found some information about it on Microsoft's site.
So based on that, I need to go bluetooth if I want more than 6 foot range.

* This seems to fit my needs: Pilot Laser Wireless Desktop
 

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Np :)

The one you just linked to should, its got a 10Meter range, and a preety nice mouse too :)
 
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