2. Building A Budget Media PC

The components in our budget media PC included:

Components and Operating System
Case	Nmedia HTPC 500 case (Black, retail: $160)
DVD burner	Plextor PX-716-SA SATA DVD burner/player (retail $121)
Socket AM2 Processor	4600+ Athlon 64 X2 AM2 processor (2.4 GHz, 65 nm, 1 MB L2 cache) ($118)
Motherboard	Asus M2A-VM HDMI (retail: $81)
Hard Drive	Samsung Spinpoint SP2004C, 200 GB, 7,200 RPM, 8 MB Cache, SATA/300 (retail: $55)
Graphics	Built-in AMD/ATI Radeon X1250 chipset (no added cost)
Power Supply	CoolerMaster RS-430-ASAA 430 iGreen Power Supply (retail: $99)
RAM	Corsair Value Select VS512 MB667D2 (CL 5.0-5-5-15) (Retail: $50)
Wireless keyboard	XGene 2.4 GHz wireless keyboard (Retail: $50)
Windows MCE 2005 SDTV card Remote	Buy the MCE bundle from PC Alchemy for $180: includes the OS, plus a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR150-MCE and a Microsoft MCE remote and IR transceiver
HDTV card	AVerMedia AverTV HD MCE A180 HDTV tuner card (Retail: $90)

This system costs $1,004. (Note: We originally reported the full price for this build at $886. We forgot to include the CPU. Sorry about that.)

Viewing the low end system from the rear and above

But there was room to cut costs. The Nmedia HTPC 500 case is quiet, nicely laid out, attractive and very well ventilated. We especially liked the air paths on the left-hand side of that case (facing the front) for the disk drives, and those on the right which draw air over the DVD player, and across the RAM and CPU cooler on their way out of the case. But at $160, this case is probably better-suited for a mid-range HTPC rather than a low-budget build. If we had it to do over again, we'd probably go with something like the SilverStone LaScala LC10 ($89), the Antec Overture II ($100) or the Vtech 500C ($60). Likewise, with a dual-layer SATA-based LightScribe DVD burner available for just over $40, why spend over $100 on the Plextor model we used in our build? Finally, the power supply could be replaced with a less expensive one.

With this in mind, we were able to bring the budget system price down to $766 with the following component swaps.

Replace the nice, quiet, and relatively spacious Nmedia HTPC 500 case with the HTPC 300 case from the same vendor for $50. This saves $110. Switch to a cheaper DVD burner. Right now, you can pick up a faster, dual-layer SATA Lite-On model with LightScribe support at Newegg for $42. This saves $79. Replace the nice, quiet and powerful CoolerMaster 430W power supply with the equally nice and quiet but not as powerful Seasonic S12-330 ATX 12V 330W power supply for $60. This saves $39.