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The Big Shooter

For the high-powered PC, I started with Antec's classy-looking (albeit fingerprint-prone) piano-black Overture case, which includes a quiet 380-watt power supply. Inside it I installed an Intel Desktop Board D875PBZ, which tested well for our March Top 100 Spotlight on motherboards. To ensure optimum performance on computing tasks as well as on multimedia functions, I selected Intel's 3.4-GHz Pentium 4 with 512KB L2 cache (and its unexpectedly noisy standard-issue fan). To complement the CPU's muscle, I installed 1GB of high-end 500-MHz DDR memory. The pricey, performance-geared setup worked well: My Antec-based PC turned in an impressive mark of 132 on PC WorldBench 4.

To process a TV signal, your PC needs a TV-tuner card. For the fancy system, I also wanted a top-notch graphics board capable of handling typical work-related PC chores (you know, like playing the upcoming Half-Life 2), so I chose ATI's top-of-the-line All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro card. ATI's premium cards have scored well on our Top 10 Graphics Boards chart, and the All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro bundle includes an impressive array of multimedia features, plus a remote control that works via radio frequency instead of infrared (so you needn't point the remote directly at the PC).

To achieve the best-possible audio, I selected the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum sound card. In addition to 7.1-speaker surround sound, the Audigy provides an unusually high level of audio quality, and it comes with a drive-bay module that puts all of your controls on the front of the PC. It was our top pick in the February issue's Top 100 Spotlight on sound cards.

Another necessity for any media-savvy PC is a hard drive big enough to hold plenty of MP3s and hours of television (high-quality MPEG-2 video recording requires as much as 3GB of disk space per hour). For ample storage and high-speed performance, I selected the 200GB, Serial ATA Seagate Barracuda ST3200822AS with 8MB of cache; it's the big sibling of the highly ranked 160GB drive in our January Top 10 Hard Drives chart.

I picked TDK's Internal Indi DVD 8x+/8x- Multiformat Burner 880N drive for DVD viewing as well as for speedy DVD and CD burning. The drive's solid performance and good software package landed it on this month's Top 10 DVD Drives chart.

Finally, no PC--whether headed for the living room or not--is complete without a keyboard and mouse, but that doesn't mean you have to be tethered to the computer. My pick here was Gyration's Ultra GT Compact Keyboard Suite. The petite size of the keyboard makes it perfect for lap use (although it's too cramped for long bouts of typing), and the accompanying wireless rechargeable mouse performs smartly on a flat surface or even in midair thanks to a nifty internal gyroscope.