Boxee has me so excited about a home theater computer that I have begun to spec out building a new one to add to my home theater set up. Coincidentally enough, ASUS has recently come out with a new motherboard complete with HDMI out and 7.1 hi def audio, so here's what my list looks like:
- P5N7A-VM - looks like they did this one up right. Plenty of connectors, including HDMI, DVI, Display Port and VGA (you can use two at a time), plus Optical SPDIF, 6 jack audio, etc. Includes the latest nVidia 9300 mobile GPU (I guess it is the equivalent of the 8200 card; I have an 8600 in the openSUSE box). A microATX form factor means I can use a "home theater" designed case.
- Speaking of cases, it looks like I could go a few different ways. High end would be the Antec Fusion series, a real sweet "home theater" (replete with dials and guages) box. But at around $200, it seems like overkill. Slightly cheaper is the nMediaPC HTPC 1000, at around $100, although some reviews have been unkind. Cheaper still is the Apex DM series, which isn't really all the "home theater" looking, but is still pretty small and about $50, albeit with a pretty wimpy powersupply.
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 chip - ExtremeTech suggests this chip and given that we aren't going to do much besides render video streams, this mid-level chip should be enough. It should go for about US$160. Although given that the Core 2 Quad Q6600 I have in my main box goes for only about $20 more, maybe I should step up here.
- An optional enhancement would be a BluRay DVD player, which runs about US$100. In the beginning, a regular DVD player, which I have all over the place here, would suffice, as I already have a BluRay player with my PS3.
- And then add in a Samsung 1TB hard drive for about US$100 and a couple gigs of DDR2-800 RAM for US$20.
So all told, it would start at about US$500 for the box, plus the US$100 for the BluRay player. Very tempting. I would also probably run a UPnP server like MediaTomb to serve up my media. The costs look like this:
| Motherboard | ASUS P5N7A-VM | $140 |
| Case | Apex DM | $75 |
| CPU | E6600 | $160 |
| Memory | DDR2-800 2gb | $30 |
| SATA Harddrive | 1TB Samsung HD103UJ | $100 |
| BluRay Player | Lite-On | $100 |
I don't really need a media PC, as my regular PC works just fine. Of course, it is a real PC in a real case, and I have to unplug it and carry it over to my home theater setup, but how bad is that? Still, I can scheme for one, can't I?
I've been thinking about building my own media center box too, but the main concerns I have are:
ReplyDelete1. Noise. This goes hand in hand with the next item, but it's my biggest concern. I don't want a noisy fan sitting in my living room, so the system has to be well engineered from a thermal perspective. Same goes for the hard drive, as both a source of noise itself and heat which drives u the fan requirement.
2. Energy use. I really like that my AppleTV, as anemic as it is, uses next to no electricity compared to a "real" computer. Ideally, I'd use a chip which knows to turn off all the extra cores when they aren't working but still has the power to get up and go when needed. And, of course, the more energy being used by the chip the more energy we have to dissipate via the heat sink and fan.
3. Reliability. The third leg of the energy stool. If we undersize the fan for the energy use, reliability will go downhill fast. I want a box to just plain work, not be a constant source of tinkering / part replacements.