HTPC sacrifice, help me decide - POLL

Here’s a dilemma that I was hoping to get some forum input on. I’m kicking around the idea of building an HTPC from one of my two desktop systems and I like to do things as inexpensive as possible while still being capable to complete the tasks at hand. As with any HTPC, the goal is a silent system that stays cool with a lot of HDD space and enough muscle to get the job done. Here are the parts that matter for this discussion:

Desktop #1
ASUS P5B-Deluxe WiFi/AP (P965)
Intel E6300 @ 2.33GHz
2x1GB Patriot DDR2-667 CL4
Gigabyte GeForce 7600GT Silent Pipe II (PCIe)
Enermax Liberty 500W
2x160GB Seagate 7200.7 (RAID0), 320GB Seagate 7200.10
Windows Vista Premium

PROS: Fanless video card, fanless motherboard, optical & coaxial S/PDIF, quiet modular PSU, Windows Media Center included with Vista, built in WiFi, video card has composite/component/s-video/DVI hookups, easily handles 1080i HD content, onboard firewire, three temperature controlled fan headers

CONS: Motherboard heat-pipes may not cool effectively in horizontal position, I would have to get used to a slower computer (#2)

Desktop #2
EPOX EP-9NDA3J+ (Nforce 3 Ultra)
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (s939)
2x512MB Corsair DDR-400 CL2.5
BFG GeForce 6800GT OC (AGP)
Antec TruePower 430W
30GB Seagate 7200.5, 40GB WD Caviar
Windows XP Home SP2

PROS: Out-dated but still capable, coaxial S/PDIF, would let me keep #1 as a desktop

CONS: Noisy NB fan, noisy VGA fan, no optical out, no firewire, slightly noisy PSU, one fan header - not controlled, video card has s-video/DVI only, no media center software, less RAM, only two SATA150 ports but has small IDE drives at the moment, is it fast enough for HD content??

As you can tell, #1 has more PROS and #2 has more CONS so the choice should be an easy one. My dilemma stems from #1 is my main system, and is by far the more powerful and I don’t want to give it up. I like having a quick and relatively current system. The only game I play is Titan Quest, and I'm sure #2 can handle that game as well as any of my usual tasks. When I originally built system #1, I kept in mind that I would like to recycle it someday as an HTPC when the time came to replace it. Well, I’m not ready to build a bigger, better system yet, but I am ready for an HTPC. I would prefer to transform #2 into the HTPC so I can still enjoy #1 as a desktop.

In order to get #2 up to snuff, I would have to:
- buy silent NB cooler ($5-$20)
- buy silent VGA cooler ($25)
- give up PCI slot for a firewire card with front panel hookups ($10)
- give up PCI slot for a WiFi card
- either buy a silent PSU or replace the fans in the current PSU ($75)
- buy another 1GB RAM, if necessary ($60)
- buy either Vista Premium, MCE, SageTV, or BeyondTV (no MythTV for me, I hate linux) Vista IMO has the best media center and TV guide. Perhaps switch to XP on #1 and Vista on #2?? ($60-$120)
- buy a large SATA HDD, or give up my backup 320GB HDD for the cause
- I can live with coaxial S/PDIF I guess, I prefer optical though

Well, what do you think? All advice and/or suggestions are welcome. Should I sacrifice my better system to make a better HTPC, or should I spend around $300 to make the spare system what I need it to be? Also, do you think an Athlon 64 3500+ and 1GB of DDR400 RAM is sufficient to smoothly handle HD content, possibly up to 1080p?

If this is just for HTPC you can find a cheap video card for your 2nd system that is perhaps quieter. Currently I use Pentium 3 Celeron coupled with a FX5900 for my HTPC. For DVD resolution and under I don't have any problems (I don't use my HTPC for storage, I just hooked it up to my network and pull files from my main system). So, I'd say you don't actually need anything for the 2nd system to be an HTPC, however a 8500GT or HD 2400 (both these process High Def video) would provide quiet video and a wireless mouse and keyboard would be nice. I wouldn't switch my OS either and would consider using a network setup like I do so you don't have to by a new hard drive. Also, use don't use compenent to link your PC to your TV, a s-video connection looks much better IMO and a HDMI connecter would be even better (I believe the HD2400 comes with one).

You really don't need to spend much money at all to make your old system into a working HTPC. In fact, I wouldn't put any money into it, rather I'd just turn up the volume a little if the pc was a little on the loud side

I would love to build new. But my budget (aka wife) isn't going to allow an $800 build. I even have a shopping list in my head for what I would buy:

Athlon X2 3800+
Gigabyte 690G motherboard with onboard DVI/Component/D-Sub & optical
500GB Samsung
380W Seasonic
2GB kit of the cheapest DDR2-800 I can find
Vista Premium

That would be dead-silent, and should be able to handle HD for about $500. I still need to get a 'living-room friendly' case, however, and the one that I want is about $300 (Moncaso 832P, wireless keyboard and remote included). I've already got an HDTV capture card that I use in system #1 to record OTA HD TV shows. The software that comes with it is worthless (Hauppauge WinTV) so I've never tried it on system #2 which doesn't have media center as the better alternative.

Perhaps I should install a 'trial' version of Vista premium on system #2 and see how she flies with HD content with only 1GB RAM. If it works, then I could spend the $200 to make #2 silent with a bigger HDD.

About linux, well it's all my opinions and you know how everybody's got one. First of all, I think Gnome looks dreadful, I prefer KDE. Add to that the superiority of Amarok and KDE is the winner for me. I ran SuSE for about a month and liked it the best of all distros (I tried Xandros, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linspire, Knoppix, and probably a handful of others). SuSE was the only linux that I could get everything working properly. Plus, though I'm not much of a gamer, I like to make time for one title that I can play occasionally. I could never get Wine nor Cadega to work with the one game I do play (Titan Quest). I also hate scouring the internet for hours everytime I need to find a driver, utility, or a Windows equivalent app and then spend more time on linux forums to figure out how to get it working properly. To me, the time wasted on linux is worth more than the 100 bucks I would pay for Windows. And lastly, command line will never fly... for me anyway. I don't like trying to remember different commands, syntax, switches, etc. that are different for every linux distro. Uber-geeks may like the freedom and control that linux command line gives, but that's not for me. That's my 2 cents. No flames please. If I had a linux based HTPC and something went wrong, it could take days for me to figure out. I'm sticking with what I know, plus the Vista Media Center is outstanding.

I plan on using DVI to HDMI cable to connect. My current HDTV only has component, but it's for sale and someone is coming over tonight to look at it and possibly purchase it. I plan on getting a 1080p HDTV with HDMI when the old one is sold. This is the reason that I'm looking at building an HTPC now because I'm salivating over the new TV before I even get it.

I'm not too concerned about HDCP yet, since that is reserved for blu-ray/HD-DVD but I would like to be ready for it. As soon as the internal drives come down in price I would like to add it to the HTPC. Neither of my current video cards are HDCP anyway, so that will have to be addressed later as well. That's why I've considered getting a simple onboard HDCP solution.

My whole house is based on wireless, I'm not planning on running cable. I also don't plan on sharing large video files between rooms either, so the network would only be most likely used for downloading the channel guide and sufing the internet.

Watch out for cooling. That case is going to be pretty full with two HDDs, ODD, vid card, Firewire card, WiFi card, tuner card(s?), 3-4 memory DIMMs (for 2 GB; yes, you'll definitely need it), and the various cooling fans.

BeyondTV's requirement for HD capture and I assume viewing is a 2.5GHz processor, which I assume to mean a P4 2.5GHz or equivalent. I'd say the 3500+ is most likely up to the task.