Shuttle SN68PTG5 XPC

It absolutely does not matter about the system’s shortcomings because it does what it's designed to do, excellently, on the condition that you use the right hardware inside. Plan it out like I did above and you can get yourself a very inexpensive, yet very capable media centre that sits in a tiny footprint. Even if you don't want an HTPC, it can be used as a general productivity box for the family—video, audio, web, documents etc—and you'd be hard pressed finding something so inexpensive but upgradable.

The Shuttle SN68PTG5 sits at an almost perfect price to feature ratio and as a result, I would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking to build a Home Theatre PC.