HTPC on a Budget

Good point. Anyway assuming I don't need ION I've come up with something cheaper: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/ [...] r=21450648

Grand Total (shipping, tax, coupons): $369.28

I'll look into a USB dongle. Any other suggestions?

EDIT: Looked into the USB dongle. There are some cheap USB dongles but none of them seem to be N dongles. Or maybe I'm too tired and am reading things wrong.

Thanks hadn't noticed that. I don't need 2 tuners though since I plan on splitting the connection from my STB to my TV and this box. I'd watch TV on the TV and record on this.

But yeah I've been looking around and it seems like I'd be a lot better off with ION. Do you guys think the GMA 3150 (or whatever the integrated GPU is on the 2nd build) will hold up fine for DVD playback and flash?

I have a D525 motherboard (next step up from D510) with the same GMA3150 integrated graphics and there's no way it's running fullscreen HD video and definitely not Flash based video. It's great as a nettop for surfing the web, spreadsheets, email and stuff like that though.

For not much more than the same price of the latest ION2 you could build a system with a Core i3-540 and H55 mini-ITX motherboard that's going to be low power and blow the ION away. If you want to stick with mini-ITX and not go micro-ATX for all these add-ins like Wifi, tuners, etc. you can get a network tuner like the SiliconDust HDHomeRun and the aforementioned USB Wifi dongle. One other advantage of the H55 mobo is that it has a real PCI-e x16 slot in case you want to add a more powerful GPU in the future, although the onboard GPU will display 1080p video just fine.

Start with this combo as your base:
GIGABYTE GA-H55N-USB3 LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i3-540 Clarkdale 3.06GHz LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80616I3540
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.540258
Combo Discount: -$17.99
Combo Price: $206.99

Add some 1333MHz DDR3 ram, your mini-ITX case w/ PSU, HDD, ODD and you've got a great system.

If you're OK with going micro-ATX look at the this combo to start from:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.548049

I am going to drop this into an Antec Micro Fusion 350 Remote HTPC case I already have for my new HTPC with the lowest price Blu-ray ROM I can find and end up right around $400 for the build (I got an amazing deal on the case at Newegg -- $55 AR).