All Home Theater PCs

The Bottom Line: The HP Pavilion Slimline s3200t offers perhaps the strongest bang for the buck we've ever seen thanks to its HD DVD/Blu-ray hybrid optical drive and its strong overall configuration. It outclasses every other HD-equipped system we've seen so far. If you're shopping for a living room PC and want complete HD format flexibility, this is the system we'd buy.

Specs: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 (2.2 GHz), 2 GB DDR II SDRAM, 500 GB Standard, NVidia GeForce 8500GT, Microsoft Windows Vista, Vista Home Premium

The Bottom Line: Velocity Micro's first full-fledged home theater PC pulls very few punches in providing a complete digital media experience. It's big, it lacks a built-in audio receiver, and it invites PC gaming into the living room, which has never been the best fit. It's also the victim of a few Vista-related growing pains. On balance, though, Velocity Micro has as complete a home theater PC as we've seen.

Specs: Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad Core (2.4 GHz), 2 GB, 400 GB Standard, NVidia GeForce 8800GTS, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

The Bottom Line: With all the talk of HD video, you might scratch your head when you learn that HP's Digital Entertainment Center z560 only has a standard-definition DVD player. But when you learn what else it has and that its price is pretty reasonable, you might not care. This is a perfect home theater PC for riding out the HD format wars.

Specs: Intel Pentium D 925 (3 GHz), 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM, 300 GB Standard, nVidia GeForce 7600 GS, EPA Energy Star, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Media center

The Bottom Line: Shuttle's midrange XPC G5 3600mc is slick-looking and compact, but it falls short of other small-form-factor systems such as the Mac Mini and the WinBook Jiv Mini.

Specs: Intel Pentium D 930 (3 GHz), 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM, 200 GB Standard, Intel GMA 950, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Media center

The Bottom Line: The Shuttle M2000 is a great-looking living-room system that handles media tasks easily, but its stripped-down specs keep it from doing double duty as your main PC.

Specs: Intel Core Duo T2400 (1.83 GHz), 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM, 250 GB Standard, nVidia GeForce 7600 GS, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Media center

The Bottom Line: Stuffing its giant case with the latest hardware and a ton of hard drive space, everything about the Okoro GX300 is big, including its price.

Specs: AMD Athlon 64 FX FX-57 (2.8 GHz), 1 GB DDR SDRAM, 500 GB Standard, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Media center

The Bottom Line: The Denali is for a select audience that's willing to pay a premium for design and DVR muscle and also willing to sacrifice some performance.

Specs: Intel Pentium D 820 (2.8 GHz), 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM, 250 GB Standard, NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Media center

The Bottom Line: A home-theater PC and 30-inch LCD for less than two grand? The living room-friendly WinBook PowerSpec 410 is one sweet deal.

Specs: Intel Pentium 4 530 (3 GHz), 512 MB DDR SDRAM, 160 GB Standard, ATI Radeon X300 SE, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Media center