TOTAL: $1029.91
Of course, I could have built this for a lot less money, but there are opposing forces of nature at work here: 1>must be (nearly) dead quiet 2>must be (nearly) flawless 3>must be aesthetically pleasing.
All of these things come at a cost. There are 'fanless' solutions available, that would have ensured a dead quiet system, AND they were very pleasing to the eye (small form factor, HTPC cases), but they lacked performance (low grade CPU to reduce heat), and would likely run very hot and be somewhat flaky. To get the next best thing, I had to employ fans, but the quietest components (that actually perform well) cost quite a bit more money. You will also note the case cost me 'top dollar', I could have purchased a cheap tower case for $15, but in an early picture on the blog, you can see that it fits in very nicely with my other entertainment components, so the extra cost is justified in looks. Achieving these three goals (set out by my wife) meant a higher cost overall.
One way that I could have minimized costs (to a degree) was to split this into two units (Myth actually has two components - server, and client front end). I could have built a server that would reside in my server room (where noise and aesthetics are not an issue). This would have allowed me to put together a smaller front end unit, perhaps even using a Mac Mini. It is debatable, however, that this would have saved money in the long run, and it would have increased my maintenance.
1 comment:
Thanks Vegan!
I don't think it costs too much. You have a lot of flexibility and endless options to expand and tune the system.
Soon you'll be able to add a blue-ray disk to it. ;)
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