Build a PC to watch HD movies

To play HTPC (Home Theater PC) requires a powerful computer, especially chips and graphics cards. Below is a design of under $ 1,000 (VND 18 million).

This system has a good processor, discrete graphics card, Blu-ray drive and tuner. This is not the cheapest kit (if saving, it can be only about 400 USD) but is a pretty good suggestion to show high-definition movies.

A home theater PC in a pretty luxury case.

Ingredients include:

Case : Selecting a "terrible" PC case is more difficult than a normal one, because there will be many wires, cards and drives on it. Hint: The $ HTPC 2000B shell is good, cheap and has plenty of component mounting space.

Processor : Intel's Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66 GHz CPUs (or higher) will handle massive workloads, making high-definition movie viewing without jerks, distortion, and let the device not hang. At this stage, people have to balance finance with processing power. The suggested chip costs $ 174.

Motherboard : Asus P5Q PRO fits nicely in the 2000B case, supports the above CPU and has a slot for many cards. Price is about 120 USD.

RAM : You need a large amount of RAM, probably DDR2 PC2-6400 Reaper CL4, 4 GB of OCZ. RAM price changes quite erratically. Suggested products cost $ 35, but only a few weeks earlier, about $ 26.

CPU unit in home theater system. Photo: VNAV .

Hard drive : This is also an important part because HTPC's goal is to "hide" Blu-ray or HD DVD discs (though the format has been killed) very expensive. The 500 GB capacity can also be enough to download movies from the Internet, for example the Desktar P7K500 500GB of 7,200 revolutions per minute costs about 60 USD.

Blu-ray drive: Currently Blu-ray drives are no longer expensive, for example, CH08LS10 BD-ROM Combo Drive by LG reads Blu-ray discs but only burns DVDs at about $ 120. If you have a cheap Blu-ray source (the sencond-hand is only about $ 20), you should also install it.

Asus's TV Tuner : My Cinema-PHC3-100 costs $ 80, which helps you watch a channel and still record another channel or record two channels at the same time. This product also has a remote control.

Graphics card : This computer requires a strong discrete graphics card, for example, the ATI Radeon HD 4670 1GB ($ 65) has DVI, VGA, and HDMI ports.

Sound card : Asus Xonar DX 7.1 ($ 57) is a pretty good device, supporting 7.1 surround sound for the corresponding surround speakers. If you only have 5.1 speakers, just select the card 5.1.

Power supply : With the integrated equipment "crisis", the power supply must have a large real capacity so that the machine will suddenly turn off suddenly. If savings choose poor quality resources, your whole machine will be vulnerable to explosion. Note to check the real power of the power supply, not the maximum capacity (normally the actual power in most of the time the machine runs normally is about 2/3 of the maximum running capacity). For example, the 600 watt ModXStream Pro OCZ600MXSP set costs $ 40.

The total is more than 800 USD.

After assembly, just plug in the surround speaker set, tweak it a bit, you can enjoy HD movies conveniently on the support screen.

The advantage of HTPC is that it can both watch movies and do high-demand jobs, suitable for those who specialize in graphic design, video editing .