So, a couple of months ago, I replaced my Media Center PC with a Sky HD box, an Apple TV and an XBox 360. Well, in reality, the XBox 360 was used to connect to the old Media Center, so it wasn’t a replacement.

Anyway, over the last couple of months I have been missing some of the Media Center features, especially the extended record support, and All-in-oneness of the experience (Music, Video, TV, etc).

So, I have started to think about building a new Media Center PC. it wont be for a while, but a quick check on Komplett for parts and here is what I am coming up with:

Main machine:

Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R, G33, Socket-775, m-ATX, GbLAN, DDR2, VGA, PCI-Ex16 EUR92

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Socket LGA775, 8MB, BOXED w/fan EUR179

Gainward GeForce 8600GT 512MB GDDR3, PCI-Express, DVI/HDMI/VGA/HDCP, SilentFX EUR102

Corsair TWIN2X 6400 DDR2, 4096MB CL5, Kit w/two matched CM2X2048-6400 Dimm’s EUR78

Western Digital Raptor 150GB SATA 16MB 10000RPM  EUR149

4X Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA2 32MB 7200RPM EUR128.01 EACH (EUR512.04)

Silverstone SST-LC17 HTPC, Black (Without PSU) EUR99

Seasonic S12-II Powersupply 430W, 120mm Fan, 4xSATA, ATX, PCI-E, 20/24pin EUR82

2x Hauppauge! WinTV-NOVA-HD-S2, DVB-S2 (HD-ready), PCI, Retail EUR100.01 EACH (EUR200.02)

So, excluding delivery and misc parts (like extra fans, cables, etc) the price is currently coming to just under EUR1500 (1493 to be pedantic). but, that will get me a machine with a Quad core processor, 4Gb ram (to start, with room for another 4Gb later), 4150Gb of storage (the 150Gb Raptor will be Boot Drive, the 4 1Tb drives will be in a RAID Array of some sort…) and a fairly decent graphics card with will output as HDMI. The 2 DVB-S tuners are for pulling HD and SD TV signals from my Sky Digi Dish. The dish has a Quad LNB connected to it, so running 2 extra cables (2 already connect to the Sky HD box) should not be a problem.

So, the next think to look is the Sound System. I already have an amp, but its not got any HDMI connections. So, I will look more into that next time.