Media centre case - bewildered by choice

[Jonny69]

As title I don't know where to start on a case for a media centre PC. I don't want to use a conventional PC case as it will be used with an HD telly in a bedroom and so has to look the part and has to be silent. I'll be going the Pentium M route for cool runnings.

It's going to be connected up wirelessly plus a tuner so the motherboard I'll use will need a couple of PCI slots and to drive an HD telly it's going to need reasonably good graphics [so I'm guessing] onboard graphics might not be up to the job. So I think this limits me to conventional layout motherboards as three cards won't be able to lay down in one of those slimline cases.

It needs a remote control as an absolute priority and I'm not sure whether these come with the case, with the TV tuner or with the graphics card, but one that matches the case would be a bonus.

So what does that leave me? I've seen a couple of Shuttle style cases bt wouldn't know where to start or what they do, what the readouts on the front do etc. What about cases that look like hifi?

Budget is up to about £200 for the case I reckon, but if the right one crops up I'll pay more.

 

[shadowscotland]

The silverstone lascala series are good - many take atx boards and don't need riser cards. Afew (with m suffix) also have VFD, IR, remote control, iMON media center software included in price and in your budget!

personal fav's are LC20m and LC17 (but they are not teeny tiny cases)

 

[tinners]

Depends if you want something which looks like a DVD player or not.

Antec P160 is also a nice case but not DVD like.

I like my HTPC to look like a piece of audio equipment not a computer so I personally think Silverstone are great for this but as mentioned the smaller ones need riser cards for PCI connections.

You could also look at the Zalman HD160.

The cubes can be a pain in terms of upgradeability (many only support 1 hard drive) but do often come with mobo & PSU installed. I had an Aopen EA65 but got rid of it for this very reason.

Regarding displays, you tend to pay £50+ extra for this function, and you should decide whether you really want it and also check it supports what you want it to do (e.g. Media Center etc.)

In terms of remote you can get the http://www.overclockers.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eoverclockers%2eco%2euk%2facatalog%2fsearch%2ehtml&WD=media%20remote%20center&PN=TV_Cards%2ehtml%23aGX_2d027_2dHA#aGX_2d027_2dHA]PVR150 tuner card[/URL] which comes with media center remote control and USB receiver

I would head over to http://www.silentpcreview.com as they have some good reviews on there.

 

[squiffy]

Antec NSK2400 is almost hi-fi component like and only £55 with a PSU. At the end of the day you look at the TV, not the computer so does it really matter? As long as it doesn't have loads of LED's flashing away. I use a Silverstone TJ-08.

Onboard is fine for HD, at least Nvidia 6150 plays back 1080P. Just get a fast CPU. I would buy a external remote ie the MS bundle, as you can easily use that for a new HTPC case down the line, instead of purchasing proper HTPC cases with IR built in (much more costly) that way you can put the htpc to one side and leave the IR receiver on the rack. If you need several PCI cards you'll need to go full ATX, but MATX has PCI-E and two PCI so work out if MATX is suitable as they're smaller obviously.

 

[Musashi]

I use 2 Antec Fusion's and they are beautiful. The thing with MCE machines is you want them as quiet as possible, which means as little heat as possible. Seriously consider if you need more than mATX. My systems use ASUS K8N-VMs, they have onboard audio, nvidia 6150 onboard graphics so the only card that I need is my BlackGold dual DVB-T pci-e tuner. I have a couple of Samsung Spinpoint 300Gb drives and my system runs silently.

 

[Doctor.Bob]

This is the duck's nuts (costs a packet though):

No competitors, Big Kev


'Tis a thing of beauty. I've got one sitting in my garage & when I'm settled in my new house I'll be putting together a HTPC using this case & an AOpen mATX Core Duo mobo.

Sweet!

 

[Oops Dead Again]

This the daddy I'm currently after but it is not cheap around the £250 mark but damn its sexy.