Asus Pundit P1-AH

As I mentioned in a previous post, I bought one of these as a second media PC. Recycling bits and pieces I had lying around, it was probably < $500 total.

The design of the Pundit is really slick, all the cables are exactly the right length, it takes one hard drive and an optical drive, and you'd be hard pressed to put it together in an untidy fashion. The case itself is small, about the size of a 360 but deeper. It uses a PCI riser, to provide 2 fullsized PCI cards, ideal for TV tuners. It has decent on board video and audio assuming your using it as a HTPC and not a game machine. The front bezel is pretty cheap looking, but all in all it's pretty much everything I want in a HTPC, with one exception.....

What idiot thought it was a good idea to put the SPDIF connector on the front of the case behind the pop down door. Every other connector you would need for a HTPC is on the back, but to plug it into a reciever I have to leave the flap open and run a cable from the front of the case... AHHH!