New TV! And soon, a HTPC!

Well I got a new TV… FINALLY! I just happens to be a Philips 42PFL6704D/F7. 1080p, 120Hz, LCD, full HD! It is quite a nice TV, perfect for the entry level TV buyer. I searched all around town trying to find the perfect one. I picked this size because its the perfect size for our apartment also it fit perfect into my budget. (Thank you tax refund!) Here’s a picture:

One of the main picking points is that it happens to be 120 Hz.  For some reason, it just looks so much better to me! The slim profile as well was a good option. I hate the TVs with the huge black border just to make their size look bigger. Well now that I have a good TV, I need other fun devices for it! I already had a blue ray player thanks to Service Center of the Year party at my old job, so no extra money there. Not something I would have picked, but hey, its free! I tried to get my Moxi DVR to work but for some god awful reason Charter felt the need to disable the DVI port. WTF??!!1?one! So I have to settle with the rat’s nest of component wires behind it. At least it does 1080i. Since I have an HD package and my 6 months are almost up, perhaps I’ll call to get a new one. I also had my old Dell Latitude D800 running as a little movie relay for my old TV since it had an s-video port. It worked very nice, did the job just fine. When I hooked it up to the new TV I was quite shocked it actually did 1920×1080, great considering its blazing fast GeForce4 Go! But upon finding that YouTube struggles to play any video, I figured an HTPC is in order.

Ah the Home Theater Personal Computer! Every AV nerds dream! I decided to head over to NewEgg.com and pick out some parts. First and foremost was the case. I have a TV stand I would like it to fit into, but I’m limited on height, so I found this:

This is the Thermaltake Mozart Sx VC7001SNS! At only 90mm high and 442mm wide, this baby is perfect! It also supports full ATX motherboards as well with 2 80mm fans. The key for the low height is the 2 PCI and 1 PCIe x16 riser card. This will be great for the possible future tuner card. Since space was small I decited, for the first time in my life, to settle with the on-board video. So a riser card is not that important now. Next up is the motherboard:

So this is the revamped ASUS P5Q-EM. Now its a Micro ATX, but its one of the few ASUS boards that have an HDMI port on the connections! Just so you know I am quite biased when it comes to motherboards. I always have used ASUS boards and I will continue to do so. They have served me very well in the past and their replacement program is phenomenal! Connections:The specs for this board are as follows: CPU: LGA775, FSB: 1600(o.c.)/1333MHz, North Bridge: Intel G45, South Bridge: Intel ICH10R, Memory: 4 Dual Channel DDR2 1066(O.C)/800 Max 16GB, 1 PCI, 2 PCIe x1, 1 PCIe x16 2.0, 1 PATA, 6 SATA 3.0Gbps RAID 0/1/5/10, Video: Intel GMA X4500HD, Audio: Realtek ALC1200 8 Channel, 3 x USB connectors support additional 6 USB ports, 1 internal firewire, INIC: Realtek 8111C 10/100/1000 Mbps, PLUS an HDMI port! I had to decide between this and the ASUS P5N7A-VM. The reason for picking this one is the FSB as well as the older PCIe port. Given, the latter board runs NVIDIA chips, but still not worth the FSB difference. The processor I went with was the Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz FSB 1333Mhz. Not the best I could get, but reasonable with the price. Plus, I can always upgrade in the future! Here is the memory I picked for it:

This is the OCZ Fatal1ty Edition 4GB (2x2GB) Dual Channel DDR2, PC2 6400 Memory. I did not get the 16o0Mhz because with this motherboard, you have to overclock it to get that speed. Since space, and cooling options are limited I will stick with this memory. OCZ is good, I have used them before and never a problem. The timing on this ram is decent at 5-4-4-18. Next up, CPU cooler:

This is the Thermaltake CL-P0257 Blue orb II. This is probably one of the only good coolers that would work with this case. Thermaltake recommended it in the manual for the case and from what I found, this is the only one that would work well. Thermaltake recommends a cooler no more than 70mm high, and this one sits right at 66mm. Perfect! I used one of these in my old P4 machine and it was very quite and kept the CPU very cool! Storage:

This is the Western Digital RE3 7200RPM 1TB hard drive. Plenty of space for DVDs and what not. This is the Raid Edition 3 which means it should run good and long as well as semi cool. The case only has slots for 2 so perhaps I will get another in the future. And finally, Power:

This bad boy, the Ultra X3 600-Watt Power Supply is fantastic, super powerful and modular! It is definitely overkill so this power supply may change in the future, but the modular quality is very important in this very small case. It will definitely help with the clutter and help keep things cool.

Now all I need is money….