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A prime example of why I won’t buy a motherboard with Intel onboard video. As a former Intel employee (over a decade gone, thank goodness), it pains me to say that Intel graphics are tolerable for text-based applications like word processing, spreadsheets, and charts; they suck for anything else. Which you now know.

I have had good luck with both Nvidia and AMD graphics for “true video.”

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If you’re going with a traditional case and motherboard combo, consider large-diameter fan[s] rather than fanless; they can move the same amount of air at lower RPM, thus less noise.

The built-in IR port rules out the route I went; see  http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=16356254

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I’m putting together my third (?) HTPC and I’m going for low cost and high performance this time. Here’s the parts list: 

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=16356254

If you want to go with Windows 7 I see no reason not to, but it was less money for me to do an upgrade from Vista (which I already had) to Win8, with the free WMC offer I signed up for last year.

I’ve borrowed some of the hardware from work (already had the OS and SSD) and it works great!

Mind you, I am testing with 4G RAM and could get away with a 30G SSD. This is running wireless (802.11N) and all the storage is on my Win7Pro “server” that lives in the workroom off the garage. Since my TV is only 720p, bandwidth is not a problem; I’d put a switch on the LAN cable connected to my ROKU if I needed 1080p.

And where I live, a tuner would be pointless, so we’re keeping “basic cable” to get Portland, OR local stations.

This box is small, unobtrusive, as close to silent as you can get with a single fan, and sufficiently powerful to stream video very well.

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