Thin HTPC Cases?

Posted by: burdell1

Thin HTPC Cases? - 17/08/2007 12:20

What is the thinnest Home Theater PC case that you have seen that takes regular size ATX motherboards?
Posted by: Attack

Re: Thin HTPC Cases? - 17/08/2007 12:45

Quote:
What is the thinnest Home Theater PC case that you have seen that takes regular size ATX motherboards?


height or width?
Posted by: visuvius

Re: Thin HTPC Cases? - 17/08/2007 15:13

Ya know, I'll be honest with you, this shuttle isn't thin but its the nicest HTPC I've ever seen. I'm sure there are those crazy ones with the built in screens and whatnot but this thing is just clean.

A little pricey. I wish they offered the bare bones case but they don't at the moment.

As far as thin goes, when I was at the Dell kiosk, I saw this really compact desktop they had there. It was pretty short and looked to be something like 4-5" wide. Just sort of struck me as being really small.
Posted by: DWallach

Re: Thin HTPC Cases? - 17/08/2007 15:56

Certainly, the easiest way to have a thin HTPC is to go with a client/server architecture. You can have some massive box in a closet with all your hard drives and then an AppleTV or some other "network media player" attached to your home theater. The only issue is getting connectivity from your closet to your home theater. You probably want to use wires rather than wireless, which could be a issue, depending on your particular situation.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Thin HTPC Cases? - 17/08/2007 18:24

Quote:
You probably want to use wires rather than wireless, which could be a issue, depending on your particular situation.

You can go wireless these days, too. Just get an AppleTV and an Airport Extreme (which now has gigabit ethernet (which they put in exactly two days after the return of my own Airport was invalid - grrr)). 802.11n is really fast.

My question is: why go to the trouble of finding a slim case for a standard ATX motherboard? Are you, for some reason, building this system around a motherboard you already have? Besides, if you do find a slim ATX case, it'll probably take half-height cards, so make sure you think about that. Oh, and a good cooling solution, because you won't be fitting any Zalman heatsinks in a slim case.

If you really want the HTC box to be in your living room, I'd say go with a barebones media center PC and build from there. Shuttle has a few different slim barebones systems, starting at around $360.

*edit*

ps- of course, an AppleTV and Airport Extreme together might cost you as much as some cheap HTPC's themselves.