hardware recommendations for new MCE pc

  I know there is a list of hardware that works with MCE and that is not what
I want. I am going to build one from scratch, all new parts. I would like
your recommendations.

Does it matter wether I run AMD or Intel?
What nice living room cases do you like, how about the one from Thermaltake?
What processor, Intel or AMD, and which one?
What motherboard, if Intel or AMD? I am going to hook this up to a home
theatre receiver that has optical input so I would like to have optical
output on my mobo. It would work that way correct?

I appreciate your help.

--
Brandon Baker
A+, Net+, MCSA, MCSE

 I just put one together this weekend, it seems to be working great:

Intel D945GNTLR motherboard (SPDIF out) with 820 CPU (dual core)
1GB dram
ASUS EN6600 Silencer fanless PCI-E video card
120GB SATA Seagate OS drive + 300GB SATA Seagate video recording drive
1x Sapphire Theatrix 550 analog tuner
2x DVICO Fusion 5 Lite OTA digital tuners
Antec Phantom 500 power supply
NEC IDE DVD-ROM, silver
Silverstone LC-16SM case
MCE remote

Notes:

1) The Silverstone case's iMON vacuum florescent driver seems to cause
periodic bluescreens, I uninstalled it and now all is well. Also, I never
could get the Graphic EQ display function to do anything. So the VF display
is useless for me until the company that wrote the driver cleans up their
act. It's otherwise cool looking, so I will try newer driver releases when
they come out.

2) The Silverstone LC-16SM case looks really good, but the front panel
controls actually feel cheap.  I don't anticipate using them though, they're
maybe more for looks to disguise the PC case.

3) This setup runs pretty quiet, my wife's laptop makes more noise.

4) I haven't tried the SPDIF out yet, new amp comes in tomorrow.

5) It's easy to wind up with a $1600 PC - are you sure you don't want to
rent a DVR cable box for $10/month instead?

"Brandon Baker" wrote:

  Thanks for all the info. No, I don't want to rent a dvr. I have about 10,000
mp3s I also want to stream. Tons of pictures, want to be able to surf from
my couch if needed. So you are actually doing high def? Did you have a
reason for going with the tuner cards that you did, most people use
hauppage, do you like the ones you bought better? Are you going to hook up
your spdif out to your amp for surround sound?

 For the analog tuner card, I've tried NVTV, Hauppage (ancient), ATI Elite
550, and Sapphire Theatrix 550. The NVTV and Hauppage cards both showed some
video herringbone noise on certain channels from Comcast. The 550 cards seem
to be equivalent to each other - they have a 3D comb filter that gives a very
nice clean image, less noise than my Sharp Aquos LCD. Sapphire's version is
less expensive than ATI's.

I record and watch OTA SD and HD all the time. Daytime shows are mostly SD,
but many primetime shows are HD and are spectacular. Watching regular analog
video makes me want to clean my glasses. Screwing with an antenna can be a
pain, but once it's sorted out, you're all set. I'm hoping MCE does introduce
cable-ready operation soon, maybe Comcast will feed me some non-network
digital channels I can't get OTA.

I am planning to use Nvidia's Purevideo "SPDIF Passthrough" mode to feed
surround to my amp.

Be sure you get an Nvidia 6600 or bigger video card, so you can use the
purevideo feature in the Nvidia decoder - it cuts CPU usage for display in
half. Lots of good info at thegreenbutton website.

"Brandon Baker" wrote:

 I can answer the Intel/AMD question...it doesn't matter. I have one MCE
running Athlon-64 3000, one running a 2.4Ghz Celeron, and one laptop using a
Pentium M 1.5Ghz. Of course, the faster the better, especially if you plan
to do HD or run multiple tuners. The Athlon-64 would give you an upward
migration path to Vista 64-bit version. If you really want to get to
state-of-the-art, consider a motherboard that would support the dual-core
CPUs.

Dana Cline - MVP


what

Thermaltake?