Following on from previous posts about my HTPC I thought I’d provide a list of what I built it with for anyone else interested in building a similar machine
| Component Details | Price | Notes | |
| CPU | Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6300 @ 2.80GHz | £60 | Still more than fast enough |
| CPU Cooler | Scythe Ninja | £35 | |
| Mobo | Gigabyte GA-EG41MF-US2H | £50 | Does the job, and fits in uATX cases. Might be worth replacing chipset heatsink |
| Memory | 2x 1Gig Corsair DDR2-800 | £30 | |
| GPU | Radeon HD5450 | £35 | Passive, cheap and supports DXVA hardware accelerated video playback. |
| HDD | WD 750Gb | £45 | Used because it was spare. Generally I recommend any quiet drives |
| Optical | DVD-RW 16x | £15 | Will soon be replaced with a BluRay reader |
| Sound | onboard | A future upgrade will replace the onboard sound with a modded high quality soundcard | |
| Case | Antec NSK2400 | £65 | Small, attractive, with room for standard size components |
| PSU | inc. with Case | ||
| Freeview | Pinnacle PCTV PCI-E 3010ix | £25 | Not very easy to find, and drivers for Win7 are sketchy. Recommend alternative |
| Freesat | Compro VideoMate S350 PCI | £25 | Very cheap, but its only a single tuner, a twin tuner, or a second card is recommended |
| Remote | n/a | ||
| OS | Windows 7 x64 | £50 | I got this cheap as an upgrade offer as a student |
| TOTAL | £435 |
Other items you may want to consider are…
Bungee rope
Case fans (e.g. the Nexus D12SL 120mm fan
Chipset heatsink (e.g. Thermalright HR-05
Decent [intlink id=“46” type=“post”]Remote control[/intlink], if you can find one
“I've been on this hunt a few times myself. I still have my Aluminus ultra in black (only 5 5.25…”