HTPC: Just finished my first build and install!!!

[HAVOC]

So a new client of mine hired me to put together a Home Theater Package which included installation of all components. His budget was $4000.00 which for him is nothing, he's a young stock broker and likes cool toys.

His apartment in NYC, has a sweet little entertainment room - pooltable, bar, fishtanks and a cool little outcove where I installed the Home Theater system....

What I built him:
Thermaltake Tenor Case Silver
425W PCP&C Turbo-Cool PSU
Intel P4 3.4GHz Prescott
MSI 865PE Neo3-V
(1) WD raptor 74 10,000rpm
(1) Seagate 300gig 7200 w/NCQ
1GIG (2x512) G.Skill LA's
ATI All in Wonder X800XT
Remote Wonder 2
SB Audigy 2 ZS
SONY DVD/CD ROM
HP Burner w/Lightscribe
MS Media Center Edition 2005
Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech z-5500 Speaker System
$2500.00

Viewsonic 32" LCD/TV = $1499.00

So all the parts arrived at my house & I built the system.
The LCD/TV and the speakers were delieverd to his apartment. Yesterday my brother and I went over to set it all up. This guy bought a sweet (all glass tv stand) so we went to work and hooked it all up. Very tough job, trying to neatly hide all wires and make it a nice professional installation. But, alas, it was completed. We fired up the HTPC and I walked him through all of the features. There are so many things you can do with that thing.
I actually installed DOOM 3 Resurrection on it and it was awesome to play a bit of it on the 32". The res. was great.
After about an hour of going through all of it's features, he was very impressed. He wanted to put in a movie and check it out so we through in the remastered THX Return of the Jedi. WOW!!! This system kicks ass... If I had $4000.00 I would build myself one.

Not to mention that he paid me a very nice bonus for my excellent choice in all hardware bought and installed. He's having a party next weekend and he's sure that i'll be having a few more orders once his friends see his... This guy makes me sick!!!

 

[Trifid]

Drools......


Enough said, lol.

Any pictures??

 

[Mr. Switch]

Woah dude, thats freakin awesome. I think i may become a stock broker.... lol.

 

[diabloII]

that's pretty damn nice, except you coulda just gotten him a gig of value ram and it woulda been the same

 

[yapeeyapee]

maybe we all could be a broker someday.... 4000 on a pc is too much.... for me atleast.. anyway so what if i had the money.... that guys decision is right... and you picked coll stuffs too dude

 

[senseless]

ugh.. poor guy.. 4000$ on a system and he ended up with an intel =(

Couldve gotten an SLI dual opteron setup for that =) A stock broker would love the capability of running 4x monitors at once...

 

[Him]

That is awesome, man! I love having rich clients, they make me jealous, and seem like they have more money than god.

How difficult was the actual configuration? I have never done a HTPC, but I would like to. It sucks money is a major player, I dont have much. My professor, when I went to college, was building himself a sick HTPC. He was always talking about it, telling us the new thigns he has. He got it do he could play several radio stations in different rooms, simotaneously. Same with TV. Wireless all around, so he could listen to the two differnt radio stations in two different rooms, and watch TV (wirelessly) in his backyard on his laptop. It was killer, absolutely insane HTPC. I would like to get into making those for people, but there just arent enough rich people around that I know of.

Good luck with future clientelle!

 

[HAVOC]

Well, they are really cool. One of the things he really wanted to do was to record a few hours of MSNBC during the day so when he got home he could check out all the things that happened on the market during the day, so I set up the TV/CAPTURE to record MSNBC from 9-5 monday - friday through scheduling. All TV/CAPTURE will be recorded to his 300GIG HDD. If he wants he can then burn anything to DVD.

One thing i was really impressed with is the Viewsonic 32" LCD/TV.
I played Doom 3 on it and it looked great. No problems what so ever in resolution or anything... The X800XT All in wonder also had absolute no problems. I cranked it up to ultra high and had the resolution on 1280 by 1024 - i think?

Windows Media Center Edition isn't my first choice in OS's but with this type of system, it's perfect. Nice layout, easy to use... Looks cool...

 

[Him]

If he paid you to set up his media center, that means that he never wants to do any administration to it. EVER! Media center is fine. Had you gone with Linux, if something went wrong he would have most likely freaked out and had to wait until you were available to fix it.

Must have been crazy to play that on a 32" LCD!!!! Especially a system like that, it should be able to run Aegis!

 

[HAVOC]

ugh.. poor guy.. 4000$ on a system and he ended up with an intel =(

Couldve gotten an SLI dual opteron setup for that =) A stock broker would love the capability of running 4x monitors at once...

Don't forget that $1,500.00 of that was the LCD/TV.
The system was close to $2500.00 but i also used the best parts. Stuff he really didn't need, but he wanted the best. And I got to check out the G.Skill LA's... Very nice... Those suckers could be overclock to hell and back... But i didn't.

To tell you the truth, for this system, Intel is better than AMD. I guess I could have put a Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego in it, but, oh well. He kinda asked for an Intel Based system anyway... I guess he likes intel, may-be owns some stock, i don't know...