[mythtv-users] Cost of MythTV Machines

[John Biundo]

Brian Wood wrote:
> With some recent discussion here about CPUs and costs I wonder what  
> the "average" cost of a MythTV machine might be.
> 
I bet this is the most common question for those considering jumping 
into mythtv.  I certainly wondered, and found it hard to really pin down 
what an adequate machine would be.  I ended up establishing a budget, 
which I thought was a bit on the generous side, and just purchasing to 
that budget (well, going over a *little* ;-).

I ended up spending around $850 including shipping and tax for all-new 
components.  My system has an AMD64 3200+ (venice core), Asus A8N-E 
mobo, Antec Overture II, PVR-150, GeForce 5200 video card, 512MB Ram, 
200GB Seagate Sata drive.  I figured for an extra $100, I'd buy in the 
sweet spot for CPUs, which was the biggest cost driver (I could have 
saved around $100 for a cheaper but adequate CPU and corresponding 
mobo).  Hard to figure how I could have saved much more than that on new 
components (maybe another $25 on a cheaper disk drive, but c'mon!).  All 
this was from newegg, which was within +/- 5% of the lowest on-line cost 
around.

I'm generally happy with it, though the Overture is noisier than I 
wanted (which I would have seen if I'd done more research on it; I'm 
still hopeful of being able to quiet it when I finally turn my attention 
there).  I'm also having an oddball problem which may still turn out to 
be hardware related, so I'm not 100% ready to recommend this combination 
yet.

Anyway, I wanted to say that this topic is probably extremely valuable 
for newcomers, and hopefully is something that can get folded into the 
wiki (I know there's been a lot of recent talk about "personal 
profiles", and this data would fit nicely.  I know there's a mythtv 
hardware database out there, and it's an OK resource, but it's missing 
pricing information, and doesn't seem to be all that active/current.

Just my .02.

john