Building a HTPC

May 13, 2005 Posted by mitch | mythtv, technology | 0 Comments

Well, I'm offically *extremly* excited about MythTV... to the point I want to go out and build one this weekend. However, looking over needed hardware which has set somewhat of a damper on things...

Some rough figures I'm seeing are the following:
Power Supply ~ $75 (Good power is one of the most important things)
Case ~ $150 (Need cooling for those components)
Mobo and Proc ~ $150
RAM ~ $85
2 Hard Drives (SATA, 300GB each) ~ $310
Video Card ~ $45
HDTV Tuner ~ $160
Total: ~ $1275

Now these are rough figures, and yes, I could go cheaper on some parts (less disks, cheaper case and power supply). However, if I was to build it, money not being an issue, that is the system I'd build. However, I'm probably not going to be considered a "power" HDTV user... the most I'll ever get is 3 hard drives(but thats unlikly considering how big drives are getting...)... and I doubt I'll ever have more than 2 tuners. (atleast for a couple years, because, I simply don't watch *that* much tv, nor would I still even if I had a HTPC, but I would like to have something setup to automatically record the shows I do watch so I can live my life and fit in some TV when I don't have anything else going on).

Anyway, I'll probably start with the minimums which can probably be had for about $500 (with one 300GB disk). I can't wait... Just need to finish up the living room first. Who knows... probably by the time I get around to building it... Hardware will be out that I could do this cheaper and better. I would like to be able to get some parts that are low power, so I don't run up the power bill.