This computer was built for a customer needing a central location for serving up all their documents, music, and movies throughout the house. He also wanted his movies and music to be able to play through his existing stereo system, and flat panel TV on the wall. The system utilizes the media center capability of windows 7 to record live TV for DVR style playback, as well as visually pleasing look while browsing for his content. The case of this computer is what really makes this work; the style is simple and blends in with other AV equipment beautifully.
This build was an ASUS motherboard with an AMD processor with 2MB Cache, 3.00 GHz, 4000 MT/s. It has 4 GB of DDR2 memory, 2 sticks of 2 GB a piece. For storage it has a total of 3 TB of hard drive space, 2 drives with 1.5TB a piece. These drives were further partitioned, leaving 500GB for the main drive, 500GB for critical backup, and 1000GB for movies. This also left 1000GB of free space for future growth. The motherboard has built in hdmi port making it very easy to connect into his existing home theater.
Build List:
Case: nMEDIAPC , Black Aluminum / Acrylic / Steel, HTPC 5000B, Micro ATX
Motherboard: ASUS M4A785-M Motherboard – AMD 785G Socket, AM2+, Micro ATX
Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 250 Dual Core, 3.00GHz, Socket AM3, 2MB Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MT/s)
Memory: Corsair Dual Channel, PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2 x 2048MB)
Hardrive: Seagate Barracuda – 1.5TB, 7200 RPM, 32MB, SATA-3G
Hardive 2: Seagate Barracuda – 1.5TB, 7200 RPM, 32MB, SATA-3G
Dvd drive: Sony DVDRW Drive – 24x, S-ATA
Power Supply: Ultra 450-Watt Power Supply – ATX, SATA-Ready, SLI-Ready
Media Card Reader: Built in
TV Capture Card: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-2250, ATSC HDTV / QAM receiver
