There are many guides to building your own HTPC such as Factory8‘s, but these tend to be weak computers that can only view files. I am however interested in other features in an HTPC, mainly server characteristics. It would be nice to have an always-on computer dedicated to your media needs which is also capable of doing other things if needed.

Goals:

• 1080p and good sound quality
• Cost effective including power consumption
• Large storage capabilities
• Enough computational power for encoding
• Flexibility in viewing your media files
• Low noise

Hardware

Chassis: ARK 4U-500-CA Black 4U Rackmount Case 3 External 5.25″ Drive Bays $80

My current HTPC uses a Silverstone GD05B case primarily for the aesthetics. I’m picky with my furniture and anything I have in my house, so I had to get a sleek case. However, this may not be very effective for your purposes since it only has space for two (or one) 3.5″ hard drives and one (or two) 2.5″ hard drive.

Thus, before this HTPC, when I didn’t care about aesthetics as much, I thought outside the box and used a rackmount server chassis, this ARK case. The main benefit is that I’m able to hold more than 7 3.5″ hard drives, making the amount of potential storage very large. Granted most motherboards come with at most 8 SATA ports, this just enough slots.

CPU: Intel Core i7-870 Lynnfield 2.93GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I7870 $230

I would most certainly recommend an Intel CPU over an AMD CPU especially when you can find really good deals on them such as from Micro Center. Otherwise, I would go the AMD route. $230 for a brand new Intel i7 870 is a very good deal considering the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 2.8GHz costs $200, $190 at best, and has a TDP of 125W compared to Intel i7 870′s 95W. Consult Anandtech’s CPU Benchmarks for information on other possible CPUs you may want.

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P55-USB3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $120

There are only two motherboard brands I trust: Gigabyte and Asus, but lately I’ve been leaning towards Gigabyte for primarily subjective reasons. I’ve just had very good experiences with them. I would suggest you use the P55 chipset over the H55 since the latter is made primarily made for the integrated graphics Intel CPUs. Also keep in mind the size of the motherboard. You might want a smaller motherboard just because you won’t need those extra expansion slots and it’ll save room and clutter in your HTPC.

Memory: CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C8 $95

The problem with memory is that regardless of what speeds and latencies you look for, they’re all relatively the same price give or take $20. I personally would spend an extra $20 and buy better RAM since better RAM probably has better reliability. Just keep in mind that up to 1600MHz, speed is more important, then latency. I wouldn’t suggest buying RAM over 1600MHz unless you plan to overclock, which I don’t suggest. Keep in mind that most RAM manufacturers provide lifetime warranty.

Power Supply Unit: Antec EarthWatts Green EA-430D Green 430W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply $65

Since you’re probably going to be leaving your computer on 24/7, you want a very good power supply. A good power supply will reduce your power consumption some what, have a less chance of dying on you, and a less chance of ruining your components. You can also keep your power supply for a very long time, so I would suggest a good one. You won’t need anything over 400 watts, so choose accordingly.

Power supplies are ranked by their 80 Plus certification. Gold is the best and also the most expensive. It it worth the extra cost? Probably not. I would just stick to 80 Plus Bronze.

Just a note, check that the power supply comes with a power cord. Two Antec’s my friends recently bought didn’t come with any. Quite annoying since they didn’t know and then had to drive to Radio Shack to buy a new one.

SSD: OCZ Agility 2 OCZSSD2-2AGTE60G 2.5″ 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $131

There are many options for an SSD, but I recommend that you get one as your primary hard drive. The brands I would recommend are OCZ, Corsair, Crucial, and Intel. It will make everything run faster and you’ll experience much less lag. If you need more space for your primary drive, by all means do so, but for an HTPC you probably won’t need more than 30GBs.

For a good comparison of today’s SSD, read Anandtech’s Benchmarks.

Hard Drive: HITACHI Deskstar H3IK20003272SP (0S02861) 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive $120

Regardless of what brand of hard drive you buy, make sure it has 7200 RPM. Anything lower than that will slow down your computer regardless of whether it’s your primary drive or not. Remember to RAID 5 all your storage hard drives.

Video Card: XFX HD-545X-ZNF2 Radeon HD 5450 1GB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card $50

Today, AMD has better video cards. You don’t need much power for an HTPC, but you want a low power video card since it will be on 24/7. I would also always go with the latest generation, but you don’t necessarily have to. Also, be sure to buy a video card with lifetime warranty. My favorite brands are XFX and eVGA.

Remote Control: Rosewill WMC Remote control/Rcvr RRC-127 for Win 7 $25

There are a lot of different types of remote controls, but honestly they’re all the same. Don’t spend over $50 on one since this $25 does everything you would ever need and more. I suggest using a wireless mouse and keyboard for when your remote doesn’t work since it would be much more flexible.

Optical Drive: LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Reader SATA Model iHOS104-06 – OEM $50

You don’t even need one. This Blu-ray player doesn’t come with software so you will have to get your own. I honestly don’t recommend one because I download all my movies, but if you do get one, get the cheapest one and do not get a Blu-ray burner because you will never need one.

CPU Fan: Scythe SCSK-1100 100mm Shuriken Rev. B 3 Heat Pipes CPU Cooler $35

Depending on how your system works out, you may want a new CPU heatsink and fan. From my experience the stock fan doesn’t work well with high loads in these rackmount style cases. However, you probably won’t need one if you’re not utilizing your CPU. Make sure you get one with a low noise rating and the fan pointing the CPU otherwise it won’t fit.

Chassis Fans: Scythe SY1225SL12L 120mm “Slipstream” Case Fan $9 or Scythe S-FLEX SFF80B 80mm Case Fan $13

Pay attention to noise level as you probably don’t want anything over 15 dBA. By all means, do not buy any SilenX fans as they have a very bad reputation.

Sound Card: HT | OMEGA CLARO Plus+ 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card $175

You probably don’t need one, but if you wanted an actual sound card with higher sound fidelity and options, I recommend these sound cards. I have one from them and it actually makes a difference.

Software

Operating System: Windows 7

I recommend Windows 7 because thanks to the large user base, a lot of software is made for it. For me, the driving factor is iTunes. If I had a Linux setup, I wouldn’t be able to listen to music on all the networked computers. This of course assumes that you can get it for free because there’s no way I’m paying for Windows.

Media Player: VLC, Windows Media Center, and Hulu

Windows Media Center is actually pretty good, especially compared to Mac’s Front Row. There’s a Netflix plug-in, but unfortunately no Hulu plug-in. You can use VLC to play everything since Windows Media Player doesn’t have all the right codecs. I recommend downloading VLC and Hulu through Ninite.

Codecs: CoreCodec CoreAVC, Combined Community Codec Pack, Media Player Codec Pack

CoreAVC is the best codec for viewing your H.264 files if you’re on an NVIDIA GPU, otherwise it doesn’t really matter. These two codec packs will make sure you’ll be able to view all the files you want on Windows Media Player and Center, though I still have some trouble with it. Always use VLC as back up.

Encoding: Handbrake

Simply the easiest and quite robust method of encoding your DVDs or Blu-Rays. Keep in mind that encoding is a long process. Expect to spend at least twice the length of the movie on the encoding process. Download Handbrake through Ninite and read my encoding guide for details.

DVD Ripping: DVD Decrypter

Simply the simplest and free way of ripping a DVD onto your hard drive. I recommend doing this before encoding with Handbrake.

Alternatives

Apple Mac Mini $690 – If you’re lazy, don’t care for storage or CPU power, and want something beautiful, by all means get a Mac Mini. My favorite aspect of buying a Mac is the retail value. In 3  years you’ll still be able to sell your Mac Mini for at least half the price.

Other sockets (LGA 775, AM3) – You can save some money by changing the sockets, but you’ll still be paying at least $50 for a motherboard and $100 for a decent CPU. I recommend an AM3 socket since the LGA1156 socket is going to be replaced soon.

Dual Core’s – If you don’t play on encoding, consider getting these dual core i5′s and i3′s. You can even try using the integrating GPU’s for displaying your media, but you might experience moments of lag. You’ll save at most $100 moving to dual cores, especially when you’re buying a quad-core for only $200.

Ebates

Make sure you sign up for Ebates so that you can get 2% of all your purchases from Newegg. It’s not much, but every penny counts! And just for signing up you’ll get $10 if you purchase using Ebates within 30 days. You have no risk!

Amazon is my favorite online shopping store. It simply has everything you could ever want, the prices aren’t bad, the shipping is free, and there’s no sales tax for Californians. If you have Amazon Prime, you even get free two-day shipping!

A lot of times when you go to Best Buy or something you buy an item that ultimately sucks when you actually want to use it. Instead, let me show you products that you would actually want to keep for a long time and are actually worth their cost. If you want me to recommend anymore items, please let me know.

Gun Safe - Stack – On® 8 – gun Security Cabinet $110. You don’t want to spend too much on a gun safe unless you have kids or think that people are actually going to rob you. I have this at home and it is worth the price. It does what it needs to do although a safe can be much better. If you’re on a budget or don’t need to much safety for your guns, buy this gun safe.

Hammock - Strathwood Portable Folding Hammock with Carry Bag, Chocolate with Champagne Frame $80. I bought this hammock for my beach house and my God is it awesome. For $80 you have a hammock you can fold and take anywhere with you. I used to have a fixed hammock made out of wood, but that eroded thanks to the ocean water. Consider this if you like to go to the beach often.

Wireless Router - Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Simultaneous Dual-Band) (MC340LL/A) $168. The problem with most wireless routers is that they seriously suck. You get disconnected a lot or you can’t even connect. What I love about Apple is that their products seriously just work. I have purchased 4 of these and I haven’t had a single problem. I wouldn’t suggest these in a commercial setting since you can’t set very specific options, but it does perfectly well in a residential setting. Another thing I love about Apple products is the resale value. These won’t depreciate as much as other routers.

Cable Modem - Motorola SB6120 SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0 eXtreme Broadband Cable Modem $120. The problem I had with my cable modem and router leased from Charter is that it would consistently disconnect and I could only plug in 5 devices. With this modem, not only am I able to use any speed Charter or Comcast can offer me, I can plug as many devices as I’d like, and I never get disconnected with a good router like the Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station. Never lease a router or a modem, and buy this modem if you have cable.

Computer Speakers - Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 THX Certified Computer Speaker System $180. It’s difficult to find good computer speakers, but these are the best 2.1′s. I spent almost $500 on a Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1 Speaker System only to replace them with these for less than half the price. Don’t buy Bose speakers, they don’t even compare.

Large Computer Monitor - Dell UltraSharp U2711 27-inch Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor – Max Resolution 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) $980. This is by far the best computer monitor out there. I only wish that it used LED lighting like Apple does. It has a very good pixel pitch which makes anything look beautiful on the display. It has a 16×9 aspect ratio making it perfect for playing movies. The color gamut is over 100%, making the color reproduction basically perfect out of the box. I have a Dell U2410 24″ Monitor too and this U2711 blows it out of the water.

Headphones - Sennheiser HD-555 Audiophile Headphones $130. These probably aren’t the best headphones ever, but they are the best for the price. You get almost the audio fidelity of expensive headphones at a fraction of the price. The only problem is that there’s no sound insulation; you hear people talking and people can hear your loud music. But for $130, you can’t complain.

SLR Camera - Canon EOS Rebel T2i 18 MP CMOS APS-C Digital SLR Camera with 3.0-Inch LCD and EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens $900. I am biased in that I am a Canon user, but right now this is the best valued camera out there. You can record in 1080p and take photos at 18 megapixels. Canons are the most popular SLR format, so you can easily buy, sell, and rent lenses. I recommend these for any non-professional photographer.

Tablet – Apple iPad MB292LL/A Tablet (16GB, Wifi) $600. You want an iPad, but you don’t want to pay the full price or the tax. Simple! Buy it off Amazon! You can buy it brand new for less than $600 shipped. Granted, this iPad should NOT replace your laptop, but it’s nice to have if you have some change laying around. You shouldn’t bother buying the larger capacity iPads or the ones with 3G. They just aren’t worth it. It isn’t an iPod, you shouldn’t be dragging your iTunes library everywhere you go. You only want all the good applications and you want to stream everything. Higher capacity doesn’t add much to the resale value either.

I recently just built two of these $800 custom built computers for two of my friends. These are the recommended parts from Newegg and Amazon. Why these two stores? They offer the best prices and best service. Amazon’s better for a lot of things because of free shipping and no sales tax in California. I would have recommended TigerDirect, but Bing no longer offers cash back for them.

For NewEgg items, please register through Ebates and use Ebates to log on to Newegg so you can receive a sign-up bonus of $10 and cash back (2% for Newegg) on your purchase. If you would like other recommendations, please ask me directly!

These are all recommended items. I would suggest getting a better case and power supply however since they generally last longer and you can re-use them in the future.

• Case & Power Supply:Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case & Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply $99 (Newegg). I’ve had this case before and I loved it except that it was too cluttered, so I upgraded to a Silverstone Fortress FT02. If you are looking for a better power supply, be sure to buy one that is at least 80 Plus Certified. This combo is a great value combo however.
• CPU:Intel Core i5 750 Processor 2.66 GHZ 8MB LGA1156 CPU $195 (Amazon). If you are willing to travel, I suggest you go to the nearest Micro Center and buy the Intel Core i7 870 for $200, though you’ll also be paying sales tax. You really don’t need anything better than a $200 CPU for almost anything now a days, so don’t bother. GPU’s are more important. As long as you have a quad-core with hyperthreading and turbo (this being the cheapest CPU that does), then you’re good.  Also, don’t buy a LGA 1366 platform CPU/Mobo because it’s not worth the price hike unless you want multiple GPUs, which, again, isn’t worth the price.
• Motherboard:Gigabyte LGA1156 ATI CrossFireX ATX Motherboard GA-P55-USB3 $120 (Amazon). My favorite motherboard manufacturers are Gigabyte and Asus as they are consistently reliable. Google uses Gigabyte on all their servers. P55′s are meant for quad-cores, so be sure to get a P55 chipset motherboard. If you want, you can buy a micro ATX motherboard, but there’s no point.
• GPU:XFX Radeon HD 5770 HD577AZNFC 1GB DDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card $160. If you don’t have a monitor bigger than 1920×1200 and don’t play super intense games, this is the video card for you. It’s the most power efficient video card out today.
• Ram: Corsair XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory CMX4GX3M2A1600C8 $110 (Newegg). DDR3 1600MHz RAM with 8 CAS timing. This is simply the best deal for RAM right now especially prices for 2 x 2GB sticks are almost always around this price. If you’re wondering, the MHz matters more than the CAS latency.
• Hard Drive:Samsung HD502HJ 500GB SATA II Hard Drive $53 (Amazon). There are a bunch of hard drives available, but if you’re not looking for an SSD, this is probably the best deal out there. Be sure to buy an at least 7200rpm hard drive. If you want both storage and speed, consider buying two and RAID 0 them together.

And there you have it, an approximately $740 PC not including sales tax and shipping for Newegg.

Other Optional Stuff:

• Optical Drive: SAMSUNG 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 4X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24x DVD Burner $26 (Newegg). You really don’t need any optical drives except to install Windows now a days, so I would say that this is purely optional. Recycle your old ones. Which one really doesn’t matter, so just buy one with good reviews.
• Keyboard:Logitech Illuminated Ultrathin Keyboard with Backlighting $50 (Amazon). I love Logitech keyboards. This is the sleakest one I could find that didn’t cost too much. If you’re a gamer, look at the Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard $80 which is so good it’s actually banned in tournaments.
• SSD Drive: OCZ Agility 2 OCZSSD2-2AGTE60G 2.5″ 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $140 (Newegg). If you have an extra $150 to spend, I suggest buying an SSD since it makes booting up and opening any program significantly faster. This would affect your computer speed much more than upgrading your CPU. I would also remove the 500GB Samsung Hard Drive above and replace it with 1TB+ hard drives for storage.
• Hard Drive Storage: Samsung 1 TB Spinpoint 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.5 inch Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive HD103SJ $68 (Amazon). Only $15 more than the 500GB hard drive and still 7200rpm. I have two of these and you can’t go wrong with them. If you have a little more money, buy two of these and RAID 0 them together. I wouldn’t suggest anything more than 1TB right now as there aren’t any really reliable ones out yet.

Be sure to read my blog post on how to install Windows 7 for free!

Due to my internship at the Army, I was forced to take another semester at Berkeley. Of course I can’t do a 5 month lease on an apartment, so I’m renting a living room from some friends for that 5 months. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the furniture, but I also wanted to buy furniture that I could use in the future. The problem with things I bought in the past is that they just weren’t useful after I moved. I also didn’t want to move furniture back from home because it would cost just as much to move it as it would to buy new things. So here’s how you can furnish your living room for less than $500 and be able to use everything after you leave.

Bedding

• Ikea Sultan Florvag Mattress$99.00
• Ikea Skydda Hogt Mattress Pad $16.99

You probably don’t need the mattress pad, but I got it to keep my mattress clean regardless. What’s great about this mattress is that it’s firm enough so that when you lay on it, you don’t feel the floor. Other mattresses are too soft. If you are really cheap, you can buy only the mattress foam padding for less than $50, but expect to feel the floor when you sleep on it. If you really want, you can spend another $30 for an Ikea twin size bed frame, but what for? You won’t use it agian.

The best part about this mattress is that its light weight. It comes rapped in a cylinder from Ikea, so technically, you can store it back as a cylinder. Have friends who wants to sleep over? Someone passed out drunk on the couch you want to sit on? Pull out this Ikea mattress from your closet and make them sleep on it. Keep the mattress pad on though so they don’t drool all over it.

Clothing

• Target Garment Rack – $59.99

There are cheaper garment racks at Target, but when I was at the register, the cashier advised me that I should buy this one because the others can’t hold much clothes. Sure it costs a little more, but you’ll actually be able to use it for a long time since it’s actually made out of metal. Plus, it’s very easy to assemble.

What about your socks and boxers? Why, just use your suitcase like I did! Who needs drawers? You don’t want a suitcase sitting in the corner taking up space for nothing. And by the way, in this picture the black clothing rack isn’t mine.

Desk

• Ikea Vika Amon Table Top – $39.99
• Ikea Vika Curry Leg x 4- $3.50 ($14.00)

For me, the most important part of the room is the desk. Before I bought an expensive Galant desk from Ikea, but it was so specific to my room that I couldn’t use it afterward and it got too dirty after leaving it in my garage for a while. The best part of these Vika Amon tables is that they are straight up rectangles. I got two of them to make an L shaped desk and plan to screw them together using a wooden board so theres no leg in the middle.

Unlike other desks, you can use this for other things such as a dining table. It’s very easy to move and assemble since all you do is basically unscrew the legs. They’re modular, so you can make any design you want. It’s much better than the other desks Ikea offer. I bought a $10 Lack coffee table to put underneath my desk to put more things since I hate drawers.

Furnishings

• Ikea Dokument Waste Basket – $5.99
• Ikea Bumerang Curved Clothes Hangers – $3.99/8 Pack
• Ikea Bumerang Pants Hanger – $.99

Most of my things such as my laundry basket, blankets, bed and pillow sheets, and pillow were from home, so these aren’t included in the price, but these are my favorite items from Ikea that are actually useful. The pant hangers are much better than usual skirt hangers. At first I wanted black hangers but then I decided on saving money since they’re a little more expensive.

Total cost not including the items I already had and only one of my desks? Less than $300, so that’s about $300 to furnish the whole room. Granted, your room is kind of bare, but that’s all you need.

This is my list of my favorite websites that I actually use.  I’m not including social networking websites since those are more subjective.

Finance

Mint and PageOnce – These are both services that aggregate your financial information so it’s easier for you to see. Mint is more well written, but Pageonce has a paid app, app for iPads, includes more than just finance. The free version of Pageonce doesn’t let you refresh all your information all at once though. I use Mint more often.

Shopping

Google Shopping – Best place to find the best prices online. Bing Shopping used to be good, but they stopped their cash back program.

Ebates, Mr. Rebates, FatWallet – Sign up, go to online stores through one or all of these websites’ links and receive cash back on your purchases! There’s no risk, I’ve already received $100+ from online shopping.

RetailMeNot – There are a lot of coupon search engines online, but this is by far my favorite due to its user interface.

MapsKrieg – Looking for a place to live? MapsKrieg maps all the craigslist listings in the area.

Other

GeoIPWeather – Gives you weather information based on your location. No more typing in Zip codes!

Imgur – Free image uploads! By far the best for quick sharing. Don’t use it for portfolios and presentations.

Ninite – Automatically install a bunch of free software on  your PC! I use this every time I set up a new PC.

Grooveshark – Stream your favorite songs online for free! It isn’t like Pandora.

DownForEveryoneOrJustMe? – Checks if a website is down on your side or their side.

LetMeGoogleThatForYou – Ever annoyed when someone asks you a question online that can be answered by a quick Google search? Use lmgtfy.com and send them the resulting link that shows them how to do a Google search!

Newsmap.jp – Visual news aggregator. Let’s you quickly see which news is making headlines.

EZTV.it – Tells you what episodes are new today and when torrents on the new episodes are out.

Of course there are plenty more websites, but these are the ones I use regularly. For more websites, I recommend you look at this Reddit post.