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Well an Asus Pundit would work very well. it includes TV out. A microATX system can be used as well. There are many microATX boxes that are about the size of a Stereo Receiver.

Here is one specced out with a Pundit for $463. A Different one with MicroATX and an Athlon64 for $508. The Pundit is actually $10 more expensive but the other system has higher end features. Add $10 for a Serial IR receiver/Transmitter if you need that. Some TV capture cards have remotes that work in Linux and some don't. Cheaper than your estimates- about the same as a Tivo+DVDrecorder. If you build yourself.

If someone really wants me to build them a MythTV box, email me and we can work something out.

try this one?

AGP cards have different notches in them to prevent you from plugging a card into the wrong voltage slot.

you can buy fanless geforce 6800's btw.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?DEPA =0&description=56-110-030&ATT=Barebone+Systems&CMP =KNC-goog13

I'm not related to Newegg in any way. I just run one of these at home as file/web/dhcp server, and I think it's freakin' insane that you can buy this kind of barebone so cheap. Add HDD and RAM and you're good to go.

Amateur.

I use several of these to increase my per-server densities of pr0n to acceptable levels. I've found that Samsung 1614N drives don't require active cooling in those enclosures, if noise is an issue, but I use Hitachi 7k250s because I'd rather have the capacity. Seagate drives seem to get too warm even with active cooling.

Use locate on a linux box or turn on the MS file indexing service for basic organization, or build yourself a little LAMP application (or VB, if you swing that way) if you really need to search against metadata. Export each volume with nfs to a single location, share out with Samba. On NT, you can use dfs to get to basically the same place.

What's so hard about that?

I believe that ATI should have taken the lead here and included this or simular cooler in their reference design for the X800 series. Unlike a muscle car, a gaming rig should be QUIET. When you're dealing with a very expensive $500+ card a great deal of attention should also be put on the cooler. If it ends up costing more, so be it...at this price point they should not be stingy with anything.

No matter how good this cooler seems to be it will still only be as good as the best air coolers. This card works but still hovers at very high temperatures. I've just purchased this: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?desc ription=14-102-502&depa=1
with this cooler: http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?prod ucts_id=175

Watercooling solves any issues that heat can cause.
The system also cools an AMD643400+(1MB), 7 250GB Maxtor (7y250P0), Asus Board and has a hose to cool off my lower power HTPC. It's quiet, it is small, it is a very good all around solution that never gets above 102f idle/116f load.

Advice to all: shop at NewEgg. Great selection, great prices, and I have experienced their reaction to damaged merchandise... they speedily replaced it with no hassle.

Hitachi has a 400GB drive that's readily available, and they've released a 500GB drive (seriously!), but I haven't seen it retail yet.

Even the non-Sony models are more expensive compared to SD cards. Pricing on New Egg has the 512MB module at $57.31. That's still a lot more than the $35 I paid for my 512MB SD card.

But have you bought cheap-o LCDs? I was considering getting a Spectre 19" LCD, but newegg says they'll only allow a refund for >6 dead pixels. I took that to mean, "the majority of our LCDs contain no more than 6 dead pixels", and that to mean "all of our monitors have exactly 6 dead pixels".

For those who DO have an LCD with a few dead pixels, how annoying are they?

Show us this marvelous machine that costs $450 and includes a complete operating system and equivalent software to match iLife and AppleWorks (or iWork for another $80), and an LCD monitor that won't make your eyes bleed, and 512MB of RAM that's worth having. Seriously, show us this machine.

I'm not him, but whatever.

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4199563?site=sr:S EARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
Plus this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc ription=20-161-615&depa=1
And this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc ription=24-160-137&depa=1

Computer: $280
RAM: $35
Monitor: $176
Total: $491 (So maybe the guy quoting $450 was pushing it a little, but not much)

Comes with Linspire, OpenOffice, Gimp, etc. For the sort of person who'd be buying this, it's a LOT better software package than Windows XP (good ease of use, virus / spyware immunity, already has an office suite, etc).

I've seen this very computer in the Sunday ads for $180, which with the RAM and Monitor would come out at $391.

But...the Mac mini looks cooler, you can install Linux on it like a PC if you want to, fits in smaller spaces, can run OSX (probably it's biggest attraction), and mac people won't look down on you if you have it.

Show us this marvelous machine that costs $450 and includes a complete operating system and equivalent software to match iLife and AppleWorks (or iWork for another $80), and an LCD monitor that won't make your eyes bleed, and 512MB of RAM that's worth having. Seriously, show us this machine.

I'm not him, but whatever.

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4199563?site=sr:S EARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
Plus this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc ription=20-161-615&depa=1
And this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc ription=24-160-137&depa=1

Computer: $280
RAM: $35
Monitor: $176
Total: $491 (So maybe the guy quoting $450 was pushing it a little, but not much)

Comes with Linspire, OpenOffice, Gimp, etc. For the sort of person who'd be buying this, it's a LOT better software package than Windows XP (good ease of use, virus / spyware immunity, already has an office suite, etc).

I've seen this very computer in the Sunday ads for $180, which with the RAM and Monitor would come out at $391.

But...the Mac mini looks cooler, you can install Linux on it like a PC if you want to, fits in smaller spaces, can run OSX (probably it's biggest attraction), and mac people won't look down on you if you have it.

The reason most of these lower cost PCs use onboard video is because most people are not running 3D games. For most business users, you will not have any benefit from using a Radeon 9200 to run Word. Nor will Grandma see any benefit from using it to view pictures of her grandkids.
Most of these lower computers come with an AGP slot. Which means you can upgrade it. Yes it is an additional cost, but really how much cost is that? Well the closest I can find is a Radeon 9200 64MB which will set you back a cool $50.
It should also be noted, that you can upgrade the PC with a better video card than a 9200. An option you don't have on the Mini.
So yes you can play World of Warcraft on the Mini, but I would bet your performance in Doom 3 is going to leave somthing to be desired.

Well, for $93/$139 you can get SanDisk with screen and FM radio and voice recorder and with removeable battery: 512MB [newegg.com], 1GB [newegg.com]

For $115/$151 you can get Creative Labs with screen, FM radio, voice recorder, and line input(note: comes in several diff colors)Muvo N200 512MB [newegg.com], Muvo N200 1GB [newegg.com]

One nice thing about these players is they don't tie you to a single source of music downloads. With these players you can choose any music download site you wish (other than iTMS). With the iPod, you are forced to either buy CD's and rip them yourself or you must download songs from iTMS which typically are a little more expensive (for example, it would cost $10,000 to fill up a 20GB iPod) and more restrictions.

There are several competing services to meet individual's needs outside of iTMS so it is kindof silly to purchase a player which isn't compatible with any of these highly competative markets.Another nice thing with the sandisk and creative labs, you can use any program you wish, or no program at all (even windows and macOS shell, and unix "cp" will drag and drop files into these players)

Well, for $93/$139 you can get SanDisk with screen and FM radio and voice recorder and with removeable battery: 512MB [newegg.com], 1GB [newegg.com]

For $115/$151 you can get Creative Labs with screen, FM radio, voice recorder, and line input(note: comes in several diff colors)Muvo N200 512MB [newegg.com], Muvo N200 1GB [newegg.com]

One nice thing about these players is they don't tie you to a single source of music downloads. With these players you can choose any music download site you wish (other than iTMS). With the iPod, you are forced to either buy CD's and rip them yourself or you must download songs from iTMS which typically are a little more expensive (for example, it would cost $10,000 to fill up a 20GB iPod) and more restrictions.

There are several competing services to meet individual's needs outside of iTMS so it is kindof silly to purchase a player which isn't compatible with any of these highly competative markets.Another nice thing with the sandisk and creative labs, you can use any program you wish, or no program at all (even windows and macOS shell, and unix "cp" will drag and drop files into these players)

Well, for $93/$139 you can get SanDisk with screen and FM radio and voice recorder and with removeable battery: 512MB [newegg.com], 1GB [newegg.com]

For $115/$151 you can get Creative Labs with screen, FM radio, voice recorder, and line input(note: comes in several diff colors)Muvo N200 512MB [newegg.com], Muvo N200 1GB [newegg.com]

One nice thing about these players is they don't tie you to a single source of music downloads. With these players you can choose any music download site you wish (other than iTMS). With the iPod, you are forced to either buy CD's and rip them yourself or you must download songs from iTMS which typically are a little more expensive (for example, it would cost $10,000 to fill up a 20GB iPod) and more restrictions.

There are several competing services to meet individual's needs outside of iTMS so it is kindof silly to purchase a player which isn't compatible with any of these highly competative markets.Another nice thing with the sandisk and creative labs, you can use any program you wish, or no program at all (even windows and macOS shell, and unix "cp" will drag and drop files into these players)

Well, for $93/$139 you can get SanDisk with screen and FM radio and voice recorder and with removeable battery: 512MB [newegg.com], 1GB [newegg.com]

For $115/$151 you can get Creative Labs with screen, FM radio, voice recorder, and line input(note: comes in several diff colors)Muvo N200 512MB [newegg.com], Muvo N200 1GB [newegg.com]

One nice thing about these players is they don't tie you to a single source of music downloads. With these players you can choose any music download site you wish (other than iTMS). With the iPod, you are forced to either buy CD's and rip them yourself or you must download songs from iTMS which typically are a little more expensive (for example, it would cost $10,000 to fill up a 20GB iPod) and more restrictions.

There are several competing services to meet individual's needs outside of iTMS so it is kindof silly to purchase a player which isn't compatible with any of these highly competative markets.Another nice thing with the sandisk and creative labs, you can use any program you wish, or no program at all (even windows and macOS shell, and unix "cp" will drag and drop files into these players)

Well, for $93/$139 you can get a better name brand SanDisk with screen and FM radio and voice recorder and with removeable battery: 512MB , 1GB

For $115/$151 you can get Creative Labs with screen, FM radio, voice recorder, and line input(note: comes in several diff colors)Muvo N200 512MB, Muvo N200 1GB

One nice thing about these players is they don't tie you to a single source of music downloads. With these players you can choose any music download site you wish (other than iTMS). With the iPod shuffle, you are forced to either buy CD's and rip them yourself or you must download songs from iTMS which typically are a little more expensive (for example, it would cost $10,000 to fill up a 20GB iPod) and more restrictions.

There are several competing services to meet individual's needs outside of iTMS so it is kindof silly to purchase a player which isn't compatible with any of these highly competative markets.

On top of it all, the iPod forces you to use iTunes the program to load up songs onto the player. With the sandisk and creative labs, you can use any program you wish, or no program at all (even windows and macOS shell, and unix "cp" will drag and drop files into these players)

So while you might try to claim that no cheaper or better players exist, it is a futile attempt. Because as I have shown better name brands, Better warranties, Easier to use, and more features, all at the same or cheaper price, exist everywhere.

Well, for $93/$139 you can get a better name brand SanDisk with screen and FM radio and voice recorder and with removeable battery: 512MB , 1GB

For $115/$151 you can get Creative Labs with screen, FM radio, voice recorder, and line input(note: comes in several diff colors)Muvo N200 512MB, Muvo N200 1GB

One nice thing about these players is they don't tie you to a single source of music downloads. With these players you can choose any music download site you wish (other than iTMS). With the iPod shuffle, you are forced to either buy CD's and rip them yourself or you must download songs from iTMS which typically are a little more expensive (for example, it would cost $10,000 to fill up a 20GB iPod) and more restrictions.

There are several competing services to meet individual's needs outside of iTMS so it is kindof silly to purchase a player which isn't compatible with any of these highly competative markets.

On top of it all, the iPod forces you to use iTunes the program to load up songs onto the player. With the sandisk and creative labs, you can use any program you wish, or no program at all (even windows and macOS shell, and unix "cp" will drag and drop files into these players)

So while you might try to claim that no cheaper or better players exist, it is a futile attempt. Because as I have shown better name brands, Better warranties, Easier to use, and more features, all at the same or cheaper price, exist everywhere.

Well, for $93/$139 you can get a better name brand SanDisk with screen and FM radio and voice recorder and with removeable battery: 512MB , 1GB

For $115/$151 you can get Creative Labs with screen, FM radio, voice recorder, and line input(note: comes in several diff colors)Muvo N200 512MB, Muvo N200 1GB

One nice thing about these players is they don't tie you to a single source of music downloads. With these players you can choose any music download site you wish (other than iTMS). With the iPod shuffle, you are forced to either buy CD's and rip them yourself or you must download songs from iTMS which typically are a little more expensive (for example, it would cost $10,000 to fill up a 20GB iPod) and more restrictions.

There are several competing services to meet individual's needs outside of iTMS so it is kindof silly to purchase a player which isn't compatible with any of these highly competative markets.

On top of it all, the iPod forces you to use iTunes the program to load up songs onto the player. With the sandisk and creative labs, you can use any program you wish, or no program at all (even windows and macOS shell, and unix "cp" will drag and drop files into these players)

So while you might try to claim that no cheaper or better players exist, it is a futile attempt. Because as I have shown better name brands, Better warranties, Easier to use, and more features, all at the same or cheaper price, exist everywhere.

Well, for $93/$139 you can get a better name brand SanDisk with screen and FM radio and voice recorder and with removeable battery: 512MB , 1GB

For $115/$151 you can get Creative Labs with screen, FM radio, voice recorder, and line input(note: comes in several diff colors)Muvo N200 512MB, Muvo N200 1GB

One nice thing about these players is they don't tie you to a single source of music downloads. With these players you can choose any music download site you wish (other than iTMS). With the iPod shuffle, you are forced to either buy CD's and rip them yourself or you must download songs from iTMS which typically are a little more expensive (for example, it would cost $10,000 to fill up a 20GB iPod) and more restrictions.

There are several competing services to meet individual's needs outside of iTMS so it is kindof silly to purchase a player which isn't compatible with any of these highly competative markets.

On top of it all, the iPod forces you to use iTunes the program to load up songs onto the player. With the sandisk and creative labs, you can use any program you wish, or no program at all (even windows and macOS shell, and unix "cp" will drag and drop files into these players)

So while you might try to claim that no cheaper or better players exist, it is a futile attempt. Because as I have shown better name brands, Better warranties, Easier to use, and more features, all at the same or cheaper price, exist everywhere.

Hardly

Limited, as I said.

Not really. They say it's only supported for approved machines, but almost any support site will say that. Other than that the only issue seems to be that you can only use USB devices which act as hard drives to boot from, not anything you can store data on. Which seems pressy obvious.

All Macs with built in Firewire can do it. Vaio's can do it. Some Asus boards can do it. There are probably more computers that support 1394 booting that USB booting.

I seriously doubt that. Almost every new PC in the last 7 years has shipped with USB and I have yet to see one which won't boot from it (though the oldest ones need a bios upgrade first)

Me, I tend to favor equipment on newegg that has a good review base... odds are if a MB has 5 stars and over a hundred reviews, it's a good board... if there are
Also, would suggest buying last-generation (still fast, but not insanely expensive) hardware.. a P4@3ghz instead of the new P4 5xx/6xx series as an example.

Generally if you compare pricing you see a break away point where prices skyrocket, and the performance gains don't really justify it...

just a few examples I try to follow.

This is what you're thinking of. Fourteen drive bays. If money were no obstacle, this is what I would use, but I've almost built whole new computers for what it costs.

notice the date on the review.....

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?desc ription=19-116-195&DEPA=1

You could always get an aftermarket kit like this to passively cool a higher end video card. However, I'm somewhat doubtful that it would work well in such a small case.

$70 for a two-button mouse? That's just as insane as not having a scroll wheel. Considering you can get a Logitech 6-button wireless mouse w/ scroll wheel for ~$28, I don't know why anyone would buy the Apple product.

this is one

Yeah, at $5.25 a USB keyboard is just sooo much more expensive than your PS/2 one.

Its in consumer's best interests to force them to upgrade lest they be left behind and forgotten.

Normally this is standard MS mentality but I disagree in this case. Here's why:

Hard drive space is friggin' cheap. Look closely there. The 80GB unit is $55 while the 40GB unit is $48. Wow... For that kind of bang/buck, manufacturers might want to start bundling Linux with Windows in a dual-boot configuration. And coming soon, virtualization - you'll be able to run Linux and Windows simultaneously on the same damn PC.

What better method of migrating people from Windows?

WinFS, however, throws a monkey wrench in that. While linux NTFS is coming along nicely, Microsoft is fearing the loss of the proprietary-ness that has locked them in for so long.

Linux on the desktop is close (though ever so frustrating at this point). WinFS is Microsoft's last ditch at thwarting it for another couple years.

Sure $199 might sounds little steep, but how about $115?!
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc ription=14-144-502&depa=0/

Other message was a simple raid 1 solution.
This one is RAID 5.

I'm sure there are others. :)

You know, there's a perfectly good media called DVD-RAM which works exactly like a floppy drive - only with 4.7Gb capacity. It's a true writable format with a media that's relatively durable.

DVD-RAM drives are less common than DVD/CD-R/RW, but at around $60, there's no reason not to have one if you want to run something like Puppy Linux on your own computer. (And DVD-RAM drives rock anyway, I've been using mine for casual data backups).

Ugh...doors on computer cases - another one of my peeves. Those things are just asking to be broken.

I'm trying to find this one case as I type that has a huge front fan on it that looks like a turbofan intake.

Oh, here, I found it.

Pretty cool, though probably too tacky for some. Looks nice and quiet (the fan supposedly runs at a pretty low RPM) I probably would avoid it just because it wouldn't be easy to replace the nonstandard fan if it were to break. Plus, the door thing.

"AMD has been better about this, trying to clearly differentiate AMD 64 from the FX line. "

AMD64 (Socket 754)

AMD64 (Socket 939)

AMD FX

"AMD has been better about this, trying to clearly differentiate AMD 64 from the FX line. "

AMD64 (Socket 754)

AMD64 (Socket 939)

AMD FX

"AMD has been better about this, trying to clearly differentiate AMD 64 from the FX line. "

AMD64 (Socket 754)

AMD64 (Socket 939)

AMD FX

You mean like the AMD Mobile Athlon XPs? I know you meant dual-core, but still.... these nice gems go in (most) desktops and laptops.

I highly recommend Lian-Li. They make the best cases that money can buy.

> A copy of XP will run you about $150.

XP home OEM is less than $100
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?desc ription=37-102-151&DEPA=6

Exactly. And why do people even buy software based firewalls anymore. I've seen nothing by problems with Norton Firewall and McAfee then I care to rant about. I mean, when a user is constantly being bombarded with "Would you like program X to access the internet", it just gets confusing. So normally, they will say YES for fear with will block their internet access. Which BTW does happen.

For a better an ease solution, just get a hardware router/firewall that does SPI. If for some strange reason you have problems with it, just reboot it. With a software firewall, you have to find what you did wrong or be forced to reinstall it which is a PITA all togeather.

And last but not least. A Linksys Wireless-G router with SPI firewall costs just $10 more compared to Symantic Norton Personal Firewall 2005. It's a no brainer as to what is a better choice. Check prices on the links below.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?desc ription=33-124-010&DEPA=1

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1091099 798939&skuId=6801785&type=product

And is it really such a new idea to buy an ASUS barebones PC, add memory, disk and cpu, throw an almost free OS at it, and free media software on it, and call it a product? Come on....

What about the slick looking case? newegg.com got it for only $138

I'm not an SFF buyer yet, but I'm certainly thinking about it. I want to build a media PC to go in my family room, and I need something that will fit in the cabinets there. I have plenty of horizontal space, but only about 14" of vertical space. I could get a mini tower and lay it on its side, but I'd like the DVD-ROM drive to be usable.

My suggestion would be something like These . ATX form-factor Desktop style cases. All the dimension benefits of a tower on its side, with all the drive bays oriented the right way up.

Sorry I goofed on the processor (AMD name game). It's this one. I think it's a similiar price proably because of AMD more than market pressure. He did get me on the memory and MB though.

It all comes out in the wash I guess, because I hang onto hardware until there's s pressing need to replace it. e.g. it breaks.

Sorry I goofed on the processor (AMD name game). It's this one. I think it's a similiar price proably because of AMD more than market pressure. He did get me on the memory and MB though.

It all comes out in the wash I guess, because I hang onto hardware until there's s pressing need to replace it. e.g. it breaks.

Sorry I goofed on the processor (AMD name game). It's this one. I think it's a similiar price proably because of AMD more than market pressure. He did get me on the memory and MB though.

It all comes out in the wash I guess, because I hang onto hardware until there's s pressing need to replace it. e.g. it breaks.

It's long past time for PC CPUs to get some power management in them so they don't have to be kicking out 100w of heat while you look at your desktop.

It's called AMD PowerNOW!. Current Linux distros (like 64-bit Fedora Core 3) enable it automagically. Athlon 64 CPUs have had it for over a year, plus the current 90nm A64's burn about HALF the power of Intel's 90nm P4 blast furnaces. AMD chips are very easy to keep cool with a low-speed fan.

Most good power supplies have temperature-controlled fans. Seasonic's new S12 series of high-efficiency power supplies with 120mm fans are my current favorite. Newegg has them. High efficiency means less waste heat. If you want something cheaper the older Seasonics are excellent too.

It might be, unless you purchased this a while ago or we're talking Canadian or Aussie dollars. This is a good example of why I don't do business with local shops anymore. Their prices are usually too high, and the quality of some of the components (RAM, especially) tends to be lower. It's not their fault; most people are happier with $10 less on their RAM versus a name brand and the quality associated with it.

Outside of all of that, though, the AMD factory HSF is a fine piece of equipment, and it should work fine.

Actually, you can cet sound via USB, for example the Sound Blaster Extigy

Link to newegg