[Wintersdark]

Thanks that makes sense, just hard to pass up when I see deals thinking more is always better.

Yeah. I actually found building my htpc to be a really rewarding endeavour overall because of how it differed from traditional PC building. You're making an appliance, basically, and unlike a desktop, more power isnt always useful. You need to balance more than just power vs budget.

For examplw, choosing a processor was interesting for me - the triple core here, or the quad core at the same price and slightly faster.... But at 100w instead of 65. On a desktop, I wouldnt have even considered the A6, but here? That extra 35 watts means needing a bigger power supply, and generating 35 watts more heat in that little box so needing more cooling. More cooling means more noise.

While the design and build lacked the gruntgruntgruntMOARPOWAH fun my desktop builds have, I felt quite a bit more accomplished once it was up and running and my wife happily announced she never wanted crappy cable again. 3 old, ugly set top boxes (dvd player, cable stb, wii for netflix) gone, one smaller, quieter, classier box in tgeir place, with just one remote for everything.