I thought I’d take a real quick look at building my own HTPC from scratch, because I was sorta impressed with what I saw when I peeped around for that previous post.  This case isn’t terrible.

I only spent a few minutes so there’s room for improvement but I was able to put together something that far outperforms the Dell Zino HD for about $100 less.  Which, for a sub $500 market is a significant delta.  The drawbacks with the DIY are a slightly less compact case and the potential for a good deal more energy consumption.  I can handle the case but the energy consumption has me second guessing.  In a second round of research I might focus on this aspect a little harder.

It’s actually kinda tough to go out and build yourself a system as low spec as the Zino.  Some of the items inside are developed with a partner to fit inside a particular case, or meet a particular spec.  The processor, for instance, isn’t available through retail channels.  AMD re-tuned (or de-tuned) something for Dell.  You might could dip into the laptop parts bin for a low power/energy solution and then try to cobble it together into a custom box but that’s more effort than I’m willing to make at this point.

The positives of the DIY are really only price/performance.  Normally I’d argue ease of swapping out parts in the future but it’s less critical than in the ever more demanding worlds of gaming or video editing or for some strange reason, word processing.  The days of MS convincing you to upgrade Office are over, short of creating entirely new file formats with the letter X in them, unsupported by older versions of Word.  Even the dog dooiest computer can run Word today.  Or should.

What happens in the HTPC world is this – computers have had music playback licked for a while.  They’ve pretty much got video playback licked all the way up to 1920×1080 (HDTV) resolution, assuming you throw in the right parts.  They stream over the web, again assuming the right parts.  At that point you’re more or less done.  Music isn’t going to suddenly upgrade and become a real bear for PCs next year.  GRRRAAAAR!!!  So you build and forget, unless something breaks.  Eureka!  Benefit #2.  I’ve been servicing and building my own computers since college.  I’ve repaired my Dell laptop by myself twice now but fiddling in the Zino would be annoying.  Doing that in a slightly more standard case would be nice.  Yeah.

Specifying and building PCs is actually a lot easier than you’d think.  I mean, I guess it’s kinda intimidating but one thing really leads to the next.  Start with the heart/brain and work your way up from there.  That part is typically the processor or the motherboard and it drives everything else.  For this project I need a small HTPC case to fit on my shelf, which means the critical innard is a motherboard that fits inside a case that small.  So I suppose I started with a case, but then I kept going by filtering all the mobos that are of that certain size and looked for the features I want.  The resulting mobo supports a certain range of processors and memory.  It’s all spelled out.  I may not always even understand what the numbers mean, although I’ll usually make an effort to enlighten myself.  You just pick from the parts that say they work together.  Most likely you’ll end up with a working computer.

So anyway, here’s my parts list as it currently stands.  All of the following items are found on Newegg.  I love this site and it’s where I’ve purchased almost everything computer and tech related for about 8 years.  Our TV, my last camera, my last three computers… the list goes on.  I really like their filtering tech.  Once you narrow down your product range you further reduce it to the ‘top sellers’ and maybe ‘free shipping’.  There’s probably a reason it’s a top seller, and unless you’re super particular, the decision is made and you move forward.

Case says it holds a microATX mobo.  The case comes with power supply which makes life easy.  Some folks would toss it out and replace it with one of their choosing.  Presumably of higher quality.  I think we’ll be fine with this one.

MicroATX mobo with decent expansion options, decent onboard video (important for home theater), HDMI and supports an AM2+/AM2 processor and DDR2 memory.

Cheap AM2+ processor.

Cheap DDR2 memory.  2 gigabytes should do although I may go to 4.

Then I throw a relatively small hard drive in there to hold Windows and applications and plug a wireless networking card in as well just in case.  You don’t need a large hard drive inside because media storage wants to be in an easily replaced or upgraded situation of it’s own.  Keeping it outside allows the case to be that much smaller, but also when you’re jonesing for more storage you just plug in new storage drives and Windows never needs to be touched.  Some people have computers that hide in closets, filled with drives, strictly dedicated to serving files.  Seems overkill for me… although I bet the whole idea of a HTPC seems overkill to you.  Touché, my friend.

That’s ah, really all there is to it.  I dunno what I’m going to do vis-à-vis home theaters and the PCs that run them.  Depends on what our internet situation is and when it comes around the way.  Also, my car is in the shop right now actually.  If I find out it needs new brakes again I may strangle all life in a 2 mile radius around my house, beginning with the dogs down the street.  Don’t think I’ll be needing a HTPC on the lamb but the new brakes will come in handy.  So stay tuned!