Building a new Media Center PC

I’m so thrilled with the way my test PC runs Windows Media Center Edition 2005 that I’m building a new MCE system from scratch. Coincidentally, Scoble pointed me to Matt Goyer, who is doing the same thing. Here are his specs:

I’m building an NTSC Media Center for my family. My requirements are that it’s in a HTPC case, has wifi, and is low cost. Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Shuttle XPC Barebone System for Socket 478 at 533/800MHz FSB Intel CPU, Model SB65G2 $190
• Intel Celeron D 330 2.66 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 256K L2 Cache Processor $88
• Seagate 200GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive $116
• NEC 16X Double Layer DVD RW Drive, Black $65
• 512MB DDR PC2700 from Crucial $83
• Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE (dual NTSC tuner)
• ATI or NVIDIA graphics card w/s-video out

Is a Celeron going to be enough? Any way to do this cheaper?

My setup is similar:

• Shuttle XPC Barebone System for Socket 478 at 533/800MHz FSB Intel CPU, Model ST61G4, $245
• Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz 800MHz (Northwood), refurbished, $175
• 200GB Maxtor SATA drive, $108
• 512MB DDR PC3200 RAM from Crucial, $92
• NEC ND-3500A DVD+/-RW 16x, $67
• Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150MCE TV Receiver, $70

I looked long and hard at the Shuttle XPC cases and chose the ST61G4 because it has excellent integrated graphics. In the small form factor Shuttle cases, not having an extra video card is a big deal. It also cuts down on noise, because there’s no video card fan. I read lots of reviews, too. This excellent and very thorough report from Xbit Labs probably had the biggest influence on me. I chose the refurbished processor specifically because I wanted a Northwood CPU; from everything I’ve read, the newer Prescott CPUs just get too hot. I have nothing but good things to say about the Hauppauge tuner cards. Matt chose the two-tuner version, but I am willing to go with the simpler one-tuner version because I have to go through a cable box, and the PVR-500MCE (which Matt chose) has a single coax input, with its splitter on the card itself. The only way you can use both tuners on this device is if your input comes directly from a single feed (no premium channels). (Update: I switched to the dual-tuner card a month or so later, getting a second cable box, for $5 a month, to feed it. The first input goes to the coax connector on the DVR card; the second input uses the S-video connector. Media Center manages both tuners quite nicely.)

How does this system compare to Matt’s? Well, I’m spending a few bucks more on the Shuttle case, but the net cost is actually going to be less, because I don’t need a separate video card. I’m paying about $86 more for the CPU, but I think the performance boost from a Pentium 4 at 3GHz on an 800MHz FSB is worth it when compared to a 2.66GHz Celeron on a 533MHz bus. Everything else is about the same, cost-wise.

All the pieces should be here this week. Whether I’ll actually put everything together this week is questionable, as I have several deadlines. I’ll probably steal 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there and build it a little at a time.

When all is said and done, I hope to have the best of both worlds: The Cox HDTV-PVR recording anything I intend to watch in HDTV, and the MCE box doing lots of other stuff, especially movies on non-HD premium channels. The recording capacity of the HDTV-PVR box is so limited it’s not practical for everyday use. The digital music and photo features of the MCE box are killer as well. But that’s a topic for another post…

Update 27-Dec-2006: The Shuttle system is now a doorstop. Details here and here.