Entertainment
I don’t have a TV at the moment and I’ve run out of books to read. So, I’ve been spending my time honing a quiet, cheap HTPC/PVR parts list. Just in case anyone is interested, I’m posting it here.
| Part | Model | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Sempron 2800 | 44.34 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA M55Plus-S3G | 58.87 |
| Memory | 2 * Corsair DDR2 512Mb | 56.40 |
| Enclosure | Antec P150 (inc PSU) | 79.84 |
| HDD | 250Gb Samsung SP2504C | 52.28 |
| DVD | LiteOn SHM-165P6S-02C | 23.20 |
| GPU | 128Mb Gigabyte FX5200 (passive) | 24.66 |
| Monitor | 20-inch Viewsonic VX2025wm | 293.46 |
| TV Cards | 2 * Compro VideoMate DVB-T200 | 68.16 |
| Total | 701.21 |
Its a pretty sweet system – the components are mainly noise and/or power friendly (apart from the DVD drive which shouldn’t be on all the time). The Antec P150 has HDD suspension built-in and, according to Silent PC Review, its pretty good in terms of thermals and acoustics, too.
Update: 2006-08-12
Correction to the above – don’t get the FX5200 as its an AGP card and that motherboard doesn’t have one. D’oh! I’ve been building computers long enough that I should have spotted that one 
Instead, I got a Gigabyte geForce 7300, which is also passively cooled, and about the same price.
Add comment June 24th, 2006