Hi there! Welcome to my blog. My name is Ivan. I am a Dutch IT Professional working as Principal IT Consultant. Some years ago I started my own HTPC project and I built my first system.
A Home Theater PC (HTPC) or Media Center appliance is a convergence device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that supports video, photo, and music playback, and sometimes digital video recorder and time shifting functionality.
Recently I upgraded my HTPC sitting in my living room. For the upgrade of the motherboard, cpu, memory, wlan and video card I payed around € 215. I re-used the hard-disk, power supply and the case. I installed Windows 7 as operating system. Windows 7 runs smoother and better after I upgraded the new hardware components.
Asus P5KPL-AM
- Intel® Core™2 Quad Ready
- Intel® 45nm CPU Ready
- FSB 1600(O.C.)/1333/1066/800 MHz
- Intel® G31/ICH7
- Dual channel DDR2 1066(O.C.)/800/667
- EZ Flash2 & CrashFree BIOS3
- 8 Channel High Definition Audio
Intel® Pentium® Processor for Desktop E5300
Asus En9400GT
1Gb Grooving in the Incredible HD Entertainment with Gigantic 1G!
- Gigantic 1G
- VGA, DVI and native HDMI output support
- Pure Video HD Technology
- DirectX10 & Shader Model 4.0
2Gb DDR2 Ram
- 800-D2N5-K2
Samsung HD501LJ 500Gb disk
- Capacity 500 GB
- Interface: SATA 3.0 Gbps- Buffer DRAM Size: 16 MB
- 7200 rpm
- Read/Write 10.6W power consumption
I was satisfied with the result and spending like two hours of upgrading the system. I don’t know exactly but my HTPC is now around €750 worth of components.
Chris McQ.
I’m running an Acer Revo1600 in the bedroom & an ASRock ION 330 in the living room. Both running XBMC Live and connecting to my Intel SS4200 NAS (with (4) 1.5TB WD1500EARS drives). Everything streams over GB and I can stream 1080P rips flawlessly. LOVE the HTPCs.