--- title: "Building a home media center - Here's my parts list" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/3/2/building-a-home-media-center-heres-my-parts-list.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/3/2/building-a-home-media-center-heres-my-parts-list.html" published: "2007-03-02T02:34:18" updated: "2007-03-02T02:34:18" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "I'm starting to put together the next version of my home Media Center. If you're living in the U.S the following list may sound a bit of a \"that's all\"-ish, but consider the following: Electrics in Israel cost mostly as…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Building a home media center - Here's my parts list By Roy Osherove March 2, 2007 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published March 2, 2007; technical details may be outdated. I'm starting to put together the next version of my home Media Center. If you're living in the U.S the following list may sound a bit of a "that's all"-ish, but consider the following: - Electrics in Israel cost mostly as at least double than they do in the US (very high import taxes) - Our living room only provides a 3.3 meter viewing distance from the TV 1. TV: [32" AOC](http://www.ivory.co.il/product.asp?productid=129&CatCode=96), HD Ready, 6.5 MS, 1:1200 Machine: Main points: - I'm building it from scratch with the following parts - The goal is to achieve a receiver like look and a very very quiet system that does not interfere while watching a movie in the living room (this will be sitting next to the TV) - Should run Vista with Media Center; Games- not that much. - I'm looking for feedback on this list 1. Casing: [ThermalTake VC4001SNS Mozart](http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Chassis/desktop/mozart/vc4001sns.asp) With Media Lab Silver (has a remote and a scrolling VFD panel so it looks like a receiver). 2. CPU: INTEL P-D LGA775 2.8GHZ 820 800MHZ FSB 2\*1Mb DUAL CORE BOX 3Y 3. Memory: 2 X DDR2 KINGSTON 512MB 667MHZ NON-ECC CL5 4. Motherboard: [ASUS P5B-E](http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/asus_p5b-e/) P-4/P-D/Core 2 Duo P965 DUAL DDR2 GIGA LAN 3Y (because it supports a coaxial 8 channel audio out) 5. CPU Fan: [ARCTIC COOLING AC-FREEZER-7-PRO](http://www.futurelooks.com/399-Arctic-Cooling-Freezer-7-Pro-Vs--CoolerMaster-Hyper-TX-for-Socket-LGA775.html) FOR INTEL 775 6. Hard Drive: SEAGATE Barracuda 160GB SATA2 NCQ 7200RPM 8MB 5Y (Already have an existing 120GB Hard driven which I will  add) 7. Graphics Card: [GIGABYTE GV-NX73T256P](http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=0&id=1970)\-RH GF 7300GT PCI-E 256MB GDDR2 DVI+TV-OUT 3Y (So I can run Vista Easily) 8. Speaker system: [CREATIVE I-TRIGUE 3600SE BLACK](http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&subcategory=27&product=10735) (can't find a good review for this anywhere - thoughts? will it fit a living room? strong enough?) Your thoughts are welcome. ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Apr 27, 2007 ### [How I stopped kicking myself and started using Google Apps For Domains](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/4/27/how-i-stopped-kicking-myself-and-started-using-google-apps-f.html) - Apr 24, 2007 ### [How I got over my Ego](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/4/24/how-i-got-over-my-ego.html) - Feb 25, 2007 ### [Why the Wii is selling like hotcakes](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/2/25/why-the-wii-is-selling-like-hotcakes.html) - Jan 6, 2007 ### [Five things you didn't know about me](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/1/6/five-things-you-didnt-know-about-me.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/