Thasp Posted March 17, 2007 Posted March 17, 2007 For soundcards, I think these two are worthy of the list. Better than anything creative has to offer(cleaner op amps and no unnecessary resampling), and a lot of the time, cheaper. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16829120103 and for more money http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16829121123 m-audio drivers kick butt as well, no issue in any linux distro I've tried or in windows. and the front two channels on that 7.1 chaintech use parts that are about equal to the m-audio. I'd recommend this PSU over the gxs one, same thing, different fan controller, I replaced the OCZ because it was always humming over quieter music. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817104014 Lastly, I'd recommend a hitachi deskstar over the WD.. the failure rate I have seen on them for people other than me(also in addition to me) is staggering.. maxtor and WD are drives I always know to mention if someone says their drive just failed without mentioning a name. As for the rest of the guide, it's 10x better than anything I could have ever come up with, if I could have come up with anything.. awesome job. The detail you went into is great, compared to a CNETish uninspired "buy this because we reviewed it well, we will say some feature of the product is the reason it got a 9 rating to hide the fact that we really know nothing about any of these products." The only thing I noticed left out was HDCP, which I find to be a very good thing. The less guides telling people to jump on the bandwagon with that nonsense, the less likely in ten years we'll be buying separate copies of a tv show for different TVs. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
benplanet Posted March 22, 2007 Posted March 22, 2007 amazing work! you really got into every topic I wanted to know about... kudos to you! kudos to the the best AIO guide to an HTPC setup!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red930 Posted March 22, 2007 Posted March 22, 2007 Thanks for the suggestions Thasp, I wanted to include other soundcards but wasn't really sure where to go - most of the ones listed I've either used or there's a lot of reviews for, the only M-Audio I've used was strictly 2-channel but worked flawlessly. To be sure there will be some revisions in the future, I'll get to them as soon as possible but at this point I'm very busy with other things.:sad: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry_Games Posted March 23, 2007 Posted March 23, 2007 I've been reading about competitors to Creative that are using the Oxygen HD Audio chip (X-Meridian is one that uses it). I'd like to look into some "other" cards besides Creatives...as much as I LOVE Creative Audigy cards for my gaming rigs, I'm finding them rather limiting in an HTPC situation (mostly about number/type of inputs). plus it's always nice to try something new Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ooztuncer Posted March 23, 2007 Posted March 23, 2007 Dan, I just briefly went over the article and wanted to tell you that you did an amazing job. After the critical read, I will post again. Kudos!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcmuse Posted March 24, 2007 Posted March 24, 2007 awesome guide! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
momoceio Posted June 28, 2007 Posted June 28, 2007 You might want to update the CPUs to include these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....&name=Dual-Core Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red930 Posted June 28, 2007 Posted June 28, 2007 You might want to update the CPUs to include these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....&name=Dual-Core Yeah, I might just say the C2D family of cpus or something since there's quite a few of them. I probably won't link anything new either. I should probably get on that.... *sigh* Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
momoceio Posted June 29, 2007 Posted June 29, 2007 For some reason they aren't classified as C2Ds...they're just listed as Dual-Core and the packaging says Pentium which might be confusing to some people. They are C2Ds as far as I know though...they're Allendale cores. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReelFiles Posted July 30, 2007 Posted July 30, 2007 Travis, you recommended a specific Capture card to me a few weeks ago, but I lost the link, do you remember which card it was for? It was cheap but had pretty nice features and I believe it might have had an included remote control. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry_Games Posted August 2, 2007 Posted August 2, 2007 Travis, you recommended a specific Capture card to me a few weeks ago, but I lost the link, do you remember which card it was for? It was cheap but had pretty nice features and I believe it might have had an included remote control. Encore ENLTV-FM w/remote is what dr_bowtie bought a couple of and gave one to me. I've now got a spare DirecTV HD receiver hooked into it via S-Video and can record/cap anything, plus I can move it to the living room and use it to cap PS2/Xbox/Xbox360 game footage as well as pull video off our HD DVR $25 or something was all he paid for it. I just looked and Newegg doesn't have them anymore, but Encore might have come out with something newer so check their site (www.encore-usa.com) and then hit newegg or Pricegrabber. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReelFiles Posted August 2, 2007 Posted August 2, 2007 I found it here http://www.upgradenation.com/ENCORE_TV_FM_...-id-616156.html Thanks I am gonna talk to Jo today and see if we can get it before it sells out, thanks bud. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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