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<blockquote data-quote="Jmac" data-source="post: 3669668" data-attributes="member: 545486">Well, again, it depends on what you want the PC to do ...&nbsp; Like I said, if you just want to do SD content, you can basically just take an old PC and hook it up.&nbsp; Depending on the computer, you may need to upgrade the video card and you may want to add more storage and a TV tuner, but all that can be done for For me, it was pretty cheap as I had a spare PC that was suitable and I just needed an NAS enclosure ($50) and I throw a 500 GB drive into it when I start to get low (currently at 4 x 500 GB, average cost of about $120/drive, my enclosure can handle up to 6 drives).Building one from scratch, right now you&#039;d be looking at:~$130 for case (Silverstone HTPC)~$50 for power supply (Seasonic 350W)~$100 for CPU (AMD Athlon BE-2400)~$80 for motherboard (Gigabyte 690G)~$80 for 4 GB of memory~$260 for 1 TB HDD (Western Digital Green Power)~$30 for DVD RW~$40-$200 for TV Tuner card~$120 for Windows Vista Home Premium/XP Media Center EditionThat&#039;s $900-ish for a basic HTPC ...&nbsp; It would be more if you wanted to add an HDTV tuner and support for HDDVD/Bluray (Need to upgrade video card to ATI HD 2400 series, probably add more hard drives so you don&#039;t need the discs).$2200 for the Alienware one is pretty weaksauce considering the one that I just put together looks like it&#039;s a better HTPC in most regards for half the price.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jmac, post: 3669668, member: 545486"] Well, again, it depends on what you want the PC to do ... Like I said, if you just want to do SD content, you can basically just take an old PC and hook it up. Depending on the computer, you may need to upgrade the video card and you may want to add more storage and a TV tuner, but all that can be done for For me, it was pretty cheap as I had a spare PC that was suitable and I just needed an NAS enclosure ($50) and I throw a 500 GB drive into it when I start to get low (currently at 4 x 500 GB, average cost of about $120/drive, my enclosure can handle up to 6 drives). Building one from scratch, right now you'd be looking at: ~$130 for case (Silverstone HTPC) ~$50 for power supply (Seasonic 350W) ~$100 for CPU (AMD Athlon BE-2400) ~$80 for motherboard (Gigabyte 690G) ~$80 for 4 GB of memory ~$260 for 1 TB HDD (Western Digital Green Power) ~$30 for DVD RW ~$40-$200 for TV Tuner card ~$120 for Windows Vista Home Premium/XP Media Center Edition That's $900-ish for a basic HTPC ... It would be more if you wanted to add an HDTV tuner and support for HDDVD/Bluray (Need to upgrade video card to ATI HD 2400 series, probably add more hard drives so you don't need the discs). $2200 for the Alienware one is pretty weaksauce considering the one that I just put together looks like it's a better HTPC in most regards for half the price. [/QUOTE]

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