4. Building A High-End Media PC

Our high-end media PC was built using these components:

Components and Operating System
Case	Silverstone LaScala 14M HTPC Case (Black, retail: $150)
HD-DVD burner	Toshiba TS-L802A HD-DVD drive (not available thru retail, substitute Xbox 360 HD-DVD player, retail: $200)
Blu-ray drive	Pioneer BDR-101A Blu-ray drive (retails for $693, consider the Sony PSP 3 with integrated Blu-ray drive for $600 as an alternative, but it integrates at the A/V receiver, not through the PC)
Socket AM2 Processor	6000+ Athlon 64 X2 AM2 processor (3.0 GHz, 90 nm, 2 MB L2 cache) ($229)
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H (retail: $99)
Hard Drives	2 Samsung Spinpoint SP2004C, 200 GB, 7,200 RPM, 8 MB Cache, SATA/300 (retail: $55 each; $110 total)
Graphics	eVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTX 640 MB (retail: $330)
Power Supply	Zalman ZM460-APS Silent Power Supply - 460W (retail: $100)
RAM	Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-8500C5D 2x 1024 MB DDR2-1066 (CL 5.0-5-5-15) (Retail: $289)
CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra	A must for HD-DVD and Blu-ray playback (retail: $72)
Remote	Logitech Harmony 1000 ($435)
Wireless keyboard	Logitech diNovo Edge (Retail: $152)
Windows MCE 2005 PVR-500MCE, MCE remote, Nvidia DVD decoder bundler	Buy the PC Alchemy MCE bundle for $280: includes the OS, plus a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500-MCE, Microsoft MCE remote and IR transceiver, plus Nvidia's DVD decoder
HDTV card	AVerMedia AverTV HD MCE A180 HDTV tuner card (Retail: $90)

The cost of this build was $3,229. (Note:We originally reported the cost of this system without the CPU. Adding it brings the price from $3,000 to $3,299. We extend our apologies to all.)

The high end media PC with the front cover on

We substituted some luxury components to push the quality and price of the unit to above to well above $4,000 depending on your choices.

Replace the Silverstone case with an Origen AE x15e ($600, with 7" touch screen) or the Origen AE S21T ($1000, with 12.1" touch screen). Replace the two 200 GB drives with 400 GB ($100 each) or 500 GB ($120 each) Spinpoint T series drives, or the Western Digital WD Caviar SE 16 500 GB drives ($140 each). When it comes to investing in high-end touchscreen universal home theater remotes, the sky is the limit, with models including Philips (the RC9800i is priced at $600 and up), Monster Cable Home Theater and Lighting Controller ($450 and up) and the Universal Electronics NevoSL (available only from licensed installers as part of a turnkey system). It would probably be a good idea to replace the stock cooler with something a bit more capable, but still relatively compact (we're in an HTPC case, after all), such as the Zalman CNPS8000 ($52) or the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler ($30).

Looking at the high end media PC's left side