Recycled HTPC is Woody, Fuzzy

Looking for a PC that is both unusual and environmentally friendly? Then take a look at Design Hara's latest luxury creation, a somewhat green HTPC that looks more like a fluffy subwoofer than anything related to Intel. The HTPC doesn't seem to really have a name, but the side covers of the chassis are constructed with recycled, handcrafted cypress wood, and provides a range of colors. The front isn't quite so woody, constructed of natural sheep leather. Baaaah.

According to Born Rich, the internal organs are connected by bolts and nuts to "make it easier to separate recyclable e-waste." The rig only consumes an average of 60 watts per hour, using a third less energy compared to standard desktop computers. Images provided by Design Hara show additional strange, butterfly-like speakers (as seen to the right), however there's no indication if they are separate, or come packed with the HTPC.

Under the eco-friendly hood, the HTPC features Zotac's 9300-ITX WIFI motherboard, providing three SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, and 5. This board also has an integrated Nvidia GeForce 9300 GPU that display resolutions of up to 2560 x 1600. Although energy efficient, the GPU received some tweaks: a 22-percent increase in the engine clock, and a 14-percent increase in the shader clock. Design Hara indicates that the motherboard supports multi-display, HDMI 1.3, and Hybrid SLI to increase graphic performance.

Also under the hood is Intel's Core 2 Duo or Quad processor. The HTPC comes configured with 4 GB or RAM and a 1 TB HDD, however consumers can option to purchase up to 8 GB of RAM and a (1 TB?) SSD. The rig also provides a Blu-ray drive for HD movies, however no audio information was provided. As for pricing of the HTPC, Design Hara doesn't offer any numbers online without further contact.

  • mlopinto2k1
    I hate to be so negative but that thing looks like it was torn out of the 60's. Although, it is cool looking as well! If my house was built around that type of decor I would consider such a creature to compute for me.
    Reply
  • Katsushiro
    What is a watt per hour? And is 60 of them good or bad?
    Reply
  • traesta
    "option to purchase up to 8 GB of RAM and a (1 TB?) SSD" what what what ????!?!?!?! a 1 tb ssd goodness
    Reply
  • jsc
    Katsushiro, assuming that you have a serious question, 60 watts per hour is very good.
    Reply
  • zak_mckraken
    Did Mr. Parrish just bleated in an article?
    Reply
  • "As for pricing of the HTPC, Design Hara doesn't offer any numbers online without further contact."

    Maybe they're just trying to pull the wool over our eyes...
    Reply
  • Shadow703793
    Pffff.... that looks like cr@p compared to this: http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/case-mod/2009/07/23/project-ingraham-by-slipperyskip/1
    Reply
  • endorphines
    How can it support Raid 0+1 with only 3 sata ports? you need atleast 4 drives for that.
    Reply
  • wildwell
    The price must be outrageous if you have to contact them personally just to discuss it.
    Reply
  • agnickolov
    jscKatsushiro, assuming that you have a serious question, 60 watts per hour is very good.
    Actually, he poses a very sound question. We know what a watt is, we know what a watt-hour is (watts times the hours it was on), but what an watt (work per time) divided by hour (unit of time) means is beyond me too. Kind of like acceleration for work done perhaps? E.g. in 1 hour it improves its performance 60 times?
    Reply