In Use, Continued

For the purposes of this article, I re-built the MEGA 180 and ran the Intel Digital Home Capabilities Assessment Tool on it. Due to compatibility problems with the TV tuner in the ATI All in Wonder series, I wasn't able to run all of the tests again, but it should provide a reasonable comparison with the system in Part I since both of them used All in Wonder cards.

DHCAT platform capabilities indicator and score

DHCAT platform capabilities matrix

DHCAT platform capabilities matrix legend
Click for larger image.

Click here for full results and details.

I also ran PCMark on the MEGA 180 to give a general idea of the PC's performance.

PC Mark score

Again to put this score into perspective the highest PC Mark score can be found here.

Closing Thoughts

In November of 2005 the Northbridge fan on the MEGA 180 began to make a noise like a dying animal. Northbridge fans also seem to be the first thing to get noisy in a PC. It was loud and obnoxious, and since the fan was a proprietary size and couldn't easily be replaced, I used it as my excuse to build a new HTPC. This time I was going to do it right though, I knew exactly what I wanted and I was going to conquer HTPC perfection once and for all. In Part III of this series, I finally succeed in building the quiet, cool, classy, powerful, and multifunctional HTPC of my dreams. Stay tuned.