Building A Media Center PC
The final spec for my media center PC was:
- Chassis: Thermaltake VC4001SNS
I went for the Thermaltake case because it had a nice desktop form factor, looked sexy and was reasonably priced despite having an inbuilt VFD media display. It came with it’s own remote and I wish I’d twigged that this meant it had an inbuilt remote control sensor, rather than wasting my money buying another Windows Media Center Remote and Sensor. I guess at least now I have a spare.
The case is extremely well laid out. When I first opened up the case I panicked when I saw the layout, but then I realised that the ‘boxes’ that hold the optical and hard drives could be totally removed to give amazing access to the motherboard.
- VideoCard:Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT 512MB
- Soundcard: Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1
- Cooling: Coolermaster Hyper TX 2 CPU Cooler
- Storage: Samsung Spinpoint P120S 250GB SATAII
- RAM: Standard 2GB ram
I think I went a bit OTT in my videocard spec as I’m not going to play any games on my PC. But, the card was well priced and more importantly, is very quiet. I haven’t connected it up to a TV yet to see what the 1080p quality is like, but it looked very strong on my monitors.
I read so many good reviews of this soundcard, that I opted for it even though I’m going to be bypassing it by connecting it to my receiver using an optical cable. Still, it’s nice to know it’s there in the future if I need it
This cooler gave the best tradeoff in terms of decent cooling without sounding like a duststorm. It’s a bit too big for the case, and the top doesn’t fit on properly, but I’m the only person that will realise that.
All of my content is kept on my Windows Home Server and this Media Center doesn’t need a TV card for recording as it will be in the same room as my Telewest TV Drive. This drive has been a good servant as it’s been worked really hard over the last 2 years in my main PC, and it deserves a well-earned break.
Overall, it’s quite a sexy little machine and I’m very, very happy with it. It’s definitely going to come in handy when my girlfriend (who watches far too much TV) is hogging the main TV!
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Comment by Phil Benwell on 11 April 2008:
Nice! That is one sexy case and would be a must for any PC on show for me. How will you use this machine, also what sort of output would you need(or be best) to play movies in avi format etc through the TV?
Comment by Everton on 11 April 2008:
@Phil
I will this machine just to run Windows Media Center. The best output depends on your TV. Digital connections like HDMI/DVI tend to be best, followed by component. I’m going to connect this PC via a DVI-HDMI cable to my TV.
Pingback by Auzentech HDMI X-Tension First Card To Support HDMI 1.3 And Dolby TrueHD | Connected Internet on 11 April 2008:
[...] Building A Media Center PC [...]
Pingback by Overclockers UK: Great Customer Service | Connected Internet on 15 April 2008:
[...] of moving to a new flat. For the PC upgrades I used the components from my main PC to build a new Media Center, and I purchased new parts from Overclockers UK (Abit IP35 Motherboard, OCZ 2×1GB PC-2-8500 [...]
Comment by Joel Brown on 26 May 2008:
This machine will run whatever you want it to. However, its ideal for Windows Vista with Media Center built in or XP Media Center.