How-To: Build a 46 watt HTPC for $500

Over at Coding Horror, Jeff Atwoof — the wumpus himself — has a fantastic how-to up, detailing the step-by-step construction of a low cost, low power home theater PC. For a little more than $500, you can put yourself together a DirectX 10 capable HTPC that runs incredibly cool. How cool?

My old highly optimized HTPC build consumed just under 80 watts at idle, up from around 65 before I began upgrading it to make it more Vista friendly. Guess how much this new HTPC platform build, which is more than twice as powerful, consumes at idle? Let's whip out our handy dandy kill-a-watt and find out:

FORTY. SIX. WATTS.

That is flippin' amazing. We're talking about a powerful modern PC here, with quite a bit of additional hardware you wouldn't find in most PCs, including a dual TV tuner PCI card and three hard drives. Granted two of those drives are in sleep mode most of the time, but still. 46 watts -- twice the power at almost half the energy consumption! Incredible! Silence and efficiency were nowhere near this easy three or four years ago.

Building Your Own Home Theater PC [Coding Horror]