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HD and HTPC Configuration Advice Needed

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  • Components
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Last response: in Components
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July 1, 2011 2:34:00 PM

Greetings All...

I am interested in building a new HD home theater PC, strictly for the purposes of watching movies and sharing media across my personal home (while connected to my plasma via hdmi of course).

I have the network infrastructure part completed hardwired and wifi (since that's what I do for a living), but am a little stumped when it comes to determining the selection of a motherboard and graphics card,etc.

In 2008 I built a HTPC using an ATI AIW video card and was able to simutaneously watch TV and use my computer. Is this still a possibility?

If possible/practical, I'm thinking about reusing a mid-tower ATX case that is in nice shape, as well as my Zalman ZM600, which has seen very little action.

Anyone care to share some insights on what they would buy for a DVD drive, motherboard, and graphics card?

More about : htpc configuration advice needed

July 1, 2011 2:47:17 PM

I would go with one of the amd hudson m1 mini itx combo boards over the atom. Amd simply performs better in graphics benchmarks. Newegg has some for around $100-120. The mini itx boards will fit in atx or micro atx cases. Also the amd has the newer usb 3.0 and sata 6 which many atom boards don't. The graphics are good enough so you won't need a separate video card unless you're a heavy gamer and the amd boards have all the connections you'll need.
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July 1, 2011 3:31:23 PM

Do you have a budget in mind? Any other parts you have on hand besides the PSU?

They haven't made AIW cards for a few years. Now-a-days, you just buy a separate tuner card to pull the signal and use whatever graphics you have to output.

Since you have your whole house wired, I recommend you look into the SiliconDust HDHomrun series of These are network tuners. What does that mean? Any computer on your home network will be able to watch and record TV. Nice, eh? The HDHR Dual is a dual tuner that can pull over-the-air local HD channels (ATSC) as well as clear-QAM digital cable. The HDHR Prime is a CableCard tuner that works with your provider's CableCard and gets you all the channels they offer.

Here is the dual.

The Prime is not out yet, but it's available for pre-order (link).
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