Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Special > Miscellaneous > DIY HD HTPC Extravaganza- Part 3: Tuners, Graphics, & Putting It All Together

Test Build 1: Living Room-Ready And User-Friendly

03:14 - Tuesday 7 March 2006 by Siggy Moersch

Here's how our finished home theatre PC looks

Our focus for the first system we configured was to ensure its extensibility and upgradeability through the use of standard hardware, but also with some attention to living-room friendly looks. The table below presents our component choices for this system, which is built around the nMediaPC HTPC 200 case, which struck us as well-suited from both perspectives.

System #1 Components
Case	nMediaPC HTPC 200
Motherboard	AOPen i915GMEm-HFS*
CPU	Intel Pentium M 1.7 GHZ
RAM	2 x 512 MByte Kingston DDR2 533 MHz
Drives	- MSI MS-8216 DVD - Hitachi 160 GByte SATA hard drive
Power Supply	Antec SmartPower SP-500
Graphics card	eVGA GeForce 6600 256MB TV-out/DVI/HDTV PCI-E Heatsink Edition
Additional Accessories	nMedia Home Theatre PC Suite 7H
TV-Tuner	Avermedia AverTV PVR 150 (from the nMedia PC Suite 7H)
Operating System	Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Notes	*The MSI 915GM Speedster-FA4 isn't available in the U.S., but is preferred over the AOpen for European system builders

The dimensions of the HTPC 200 are not too unwieldy, especially where case depth is concerned. This nearly 11 pound aluminium and steel case comes with a built-in multi-function VFD and also delivers a multimedia memory card reader tucked behind its swing-down front panel door. It also supports AV ports for many uses, including video-in and video-out applications.

We didn't survey hard or optical drives as part of this series, so we'll explain our choices for those components now. The MSI MS-8216 was chosen because it is not as deep as other DVD drives and fit well into the HTPC 200's limited space. The Hitachi drive happened to be on hand and has nothing in particular to recommend it for (or against) HTPC use.

Another reason why we chose the nMedia case for our build was because of the company's Home Theatre PC Suite, which makes for an easy upgrade of the HTPC 200 to an all-around multimedia center. The suite includes an IR remote control, a compatible keyboard and a nice Avermedia TV tuner card, which receives NTSC TV only. (Due to our European location, testing ATSC HDTV wasn't an option.)