The Hardware

After many, many hours of searching across the web, I finally decided on all the hardware necessary to build a high power Home Theater PC.

First thing to figure out was what kind of case to house all the hardware. I wanted something a little more unique then those out-of-the-box mini computer cases. Then it hit me, an NES. Not a Super NES, not an XBox but a 1985 retro style Nintendo Entertainment System. Perfect. The NES is a perfect little case for a HTPC. Its simple design and relative bulky size meant it would look good in the entertainment center and be able to house all the high performance hardware inside. I can also make use of its power switch, reset switch and power indicator light quite easily.

Now that I had the case figured out, I needed to find a motherboard to fit inside the NES. A standard ATX full size motherboard is 12 x 9.6 inches. The NES is 10 x 8 x 3.5 inches, this meant I would need to find a board much smaller then standard in order to fit it inside. I also needed to consider the extra space that would be required for housing the hard drive. I went with a laptop hard drive. They're small and typically faster then a full size desktop drive. With this in mind, I stumbled across the Mini-ITX form factor of motherboard. These boards are 7.6 x 7.6 inches and typically contain integrated graphics cards, further saving on space.

Below is a list of all the components:

• NES
• Gigabyte E350N-USB3 Motherboard
• G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB DDR3-1600 Memory Kit
• Pico PSU 90W 12V DC-DC ATX Power Supply with 60W Power Brick
• Seagate Momentus 500GB 2.5IN SATA 7200RPM 16MB Notebook Hard Drive
• ATX Power/Reset/LED connector cables

The PC Components

Gigabyte E350N-USB3 Motherboard

Gigabyte E350N-USB3 Motherboard

Of note is the Gigabyte motherboard. A bonus of this board is that it comes with AMD Fusion™ Technology. This means that the CPU and graphics controller are built into the same physical chip! A nice bonus as I would save on cost (don't have to buy a separate CPU and graphics card) and also on space (don't need a bulky graphics card stuck in one of the PCI slots). The CPU is an AMD E-350 Dual-Core processor and the graphics controller is AMD Radeon HD 6310.

Gigabyte E350N-USB3 Motherboard Connectors

The motherboard also has these other great features for a home theater PC:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port (old school keyboard/mouse connectors)
• 1 x D-Sub port
• 1 x DVI-D port
• 1 x HDMI port
• 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
• 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
• 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
• 1 x RJ-45 port
• 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)

All I will be using is the HDMI for video, the optical for audio and a few USB ports for wireless keyboard and mouse.

Pico PSU Power Supply

Pico PSU Power Supply Adapter

There was no way I was going to fit a standard ATX power supply in the NES case. I needed another option. I found these nice little power connectors that work great for Mini-ITX boards. They plug right into the motherboard and offer a DC/DC adapter connector. You can consider this setup similar to how a laptop is plugged in for power. After a bit of research, it looked like the PC would only eat up around 40-50 Watts of power. I decided on the 60W power brick for supplying the juice. I can always upgrade this easily in the future. This particular power supply adapter has the 4-pin P4 for the CPU, 1 x SATA and 1 x Molex. Its a 20-pin adapter rather then a 24-pin. The extra 4 pins are for powering the PCI Express slot, which I won't be using. I will be running the hard drive off the SATA and possibly use the Molex for a fan.

I ordered the parts from NCIX and while waiting for some of them to be shipped to the store, I began the search for the NES.