HTPC For Cheap

[emarvets]

Approximate Purchase Date: Within a Week
Budget Range: Under $300
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Strictly 1) VLC Media Player to play media from the network, 2) Amazon Instant Video, 3) Youtube, 4) check fantasy football scores in a web browser.
Parts Not Required: N/A
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg
Country: USA
Parts Preferences: N/A
Overclocking: N/A
SLI or Crossfire: N/A
Monitor Resolution: 1080p
Additional Comments: I don't know if I should be in New Build or the Prebuilt forum for this. On the surface I like the $100 Google.TV boxes (VIZIO co-star or Logitech Revue), but I've never seen them so I don't know how well they work. I know a $300 custom box will get me where I'm going though.

 

[luciferano]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/k5hM

CPU and graphics: A6-3500 $69.99
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-ad3500ojgxbox

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-A55M-DS2 $54.98 after MIR
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaa55mds2

RAM: Crucial DDR3-1866 9-9-9-24 1.5V 2x2GB BLT2KIT2G3D1869DT1TX0 $39.99 after MIR
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/crucial-memory-blt2kit2g3d1869dt1tx0

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 7.2KRPM $55.99 WD5000AAKX
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd5000aakx

Case: Rosewill R379-M Micro-ATX slim-line w/300W PSU $49.99
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/rosewill-case-r379m


DVD/CD drive: LG GH24NS90 CD/DVD burner $16.99
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/lg-optical-drive-gh24ns90

total:$271.93 after $10 MIR

What do you think of this? It should perform excellently as an HTPC. If you want a Blu-Ray drive instead of a DVD drive, that'll be just slightly out of budget unless you go down to a 250GB Caviar Blue hard drive and an inferior motherboard.

 

[emarvets]

Best answer selected by emarvets.

 

[Truckman]

How would this system do running LinuxMint13 and possibly xbmc?

Would you be able to use it as a DVR?

 

[luciferano]

Usage as a DVR might need a tuner or something, I'm not sure and I've never done that. It can be done, I'm just not sure of what else it would need, if anything.

IDK how it will run with any Linux distribution. It should work, but I'm not sure of how good driver support for this hardware is in any of those Linux distributions.