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ECS, PCChips, Amptron, and a few other brands are all under the Elitegroup corporation. They all used to be fairly close to junk, but priced accordingly, but the past few years they've improved somewhat (to the point where I'd consider an ECS-branded board myself). PCChips are just their lower-end brand.
So a little update. I have found a 680i board to use in my current setup, which means I will be using my Intel D945GPm board in this system. Trying to find a decent, yet cheap video card though.
Like this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121259
It has HDMI for building your HTPC.
How decent does it need to be? I still have my 7300LE, but don't really plan on selling it. I paid $30 for it after a rebate, and it isn't worth much of anything.
Sorry I'm late to the party. My main question (which leads to sub-questions) on hardware for you is: What is the system going to be doing?
Is it going to be just a primary frontend with the hard work handled by a remote backend on the network - or is it going to be doing all the heavy lifting as well? Do you plan to be watching/recording live TV with it, or is it just for DL'd movies and music? These are things that can drastically change your hardware setup.
My front end, connected to my TV is just play-back...so I'm using very out of date and basic (cheap) equipment on it...however, my backend that I use for storage, distribution, ripping, encoding, recording and other day-to-day tasks has much better task-crunching ability.
crippler, what speed is your network? 100/1000 cat5e/6 UTP? Or 802.11n?
I'm getting used to this terminology now. I guess I should be, as I'm taking a networking course XD
Every thing is running standard 10/100 cards (well, technically the server has on board 10/100/1000Mbps), so that's where the bottlenecks are on the network.
Basically, I want a system that has the capabilities of DLing movies, and saving tv shows to watch them later. I have a parts list, I'll edit to show what I'm thinking, tell me what you think after I edit.
EDIT:
Parts list:
Intel Desktop Board D945GPM
Intel Pentium D 830 Engineering Sample 3.0GHz
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB (2x1GB) 800mhz
2x1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HDDs
SolyTech 550W PSU
WinTV TV Tuner pci card
Sapphire Radeon x1650PRO 512mb PCI-e
Lite-On 4x Blu Ray ROM
Logitech LX310 usb wireless keyboard/mouse combo
Those all look like great choices for the system you are trying to build,
except for the motherboard, and processor.
You might as well get the Pentium D 940 or Higher.
I would recommend this motherboard instead.
I have purchased several of them myself, and they
are perfect for a basic computer system.
Foxconn 945P7aa
Look at the one that I have in my "my system". I got it dirt cheap. It's the full-size version. Only $30 retail.
