My NES PC Build

[Nick09]

I know that many people have done this before but I want to join in. My goal is to build a powerful system that can play movies and some games in HD for under $600. So far I have all of the parts that I need except for some nuts, a dremel kit, I need to manufacture some mounts for the Blu-ray drive, HDD, and the power supply.

Parts to be used:
NES: $0
Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHz: $119.99
PNY 4GB DDR2 800 RAM: $81.99
Zotac GF9300-D-E motherboard: $139.99
LG Blu-Ray Drive - UH08LS10K: $99.99
Seagate Momentus 5400.2 60GB: $0
In Win IP-P300F1-0 300W PSU: $24.99
GELID Slim Silence 775: $21.99
Three fans, two 40mm and one 60mm: $10.97

If you add all of that up, it's a total of $499.21. So far I have dissembled the NES and installed the RAM and the CPU.

Motherboard with newly installed RAM and CPU:


I'll be updating as fast as I can but you can always check for more progress by going to my DA account(link) or by visiting the gallery(link).

[GruntUltra]

Nice build - and powerful too! I completed a similar NES mod last year and I have used it mostly to watch streaming tv (hockey) on our living room set. It was a lot of fun and now I'm itching to build another one. This time I have a Q8200 and I'd use the same board you did. Great build! See mine here:
eXoid.com Forums • View topic - Dual-Core Atom NES-PC

Grant

[Nick09]

Thanks for the comment. I haven't been updating recently because the bios chip on my motherboard went out. I just haven't been finding the time to get it replaced. Though the integrated graphics card that is included is A+. It has stood temperatures as high as 170 degrees Fahrenheit and has not let it's grip slip off when I play video games. That's even including Crysis. I a lot of my friends at my IT class were pretty impressed that you could play guitar hero 2 on it(you could only play in practice mode with out much lag).

I just sent an RMA today so hopefully I will get to sending it out tomorrow. Currently I have spent about $700-$800 on it including stuff like the dremel set and other parts. I'm also thinking of getting a laptop sized blu-ray drive even though they cost quite a bit. They have released this motherboard that has support for DDR3. The good thing is that they now have a power supply standard for Mini-itx and the good thing is that they are not too tall and are about two inches shorter than my power supply. That means that even if you position the power supply under the vents there will be enough space for you to mod the controller ports.

[GruntUltra]

Have you thought about using a Pico-PSU (like I did) here: picoPSU-120 12V DC-DC ATX power supply ? It will provide 120W, it's smaller than anything, and has proved solid for my system for quite some time now. I have also heard how the 9300 GPU runs hot during gaming and HD playback too. I too, would have liked to use a PCI-E video card, but space and heat are the big concerns there. The NVIDIA GT-240 GDDR5 cards have tons of power for most games but don't require a power dongle and would be well-suited to this application. I prefer to not have the added optical drive since I can install most software through the network or using image files. I'm sure I couldn't stream Blue-Ray content since that bandwidth is so high, but I can stream HD with my setup now. But if ANYTHING else pops up (antivirus scan, MS updates, etc.) the system will stutter. I can play a pile of games on it, but anything newer than Half-Life 2 has to have the settings dropped real low to be playable. All of the console emulators (MAME, NES, C64, SNES, GB, GBA/C, N64, PS1) work fine on the dual-core Atom, but it's not a very powerful CPU by any means.
I hope the RMA comes through for you soon - dealing with these things can be such a hassle. Your build looks really fantastic and I am sure it performs solidly. Seeing the pics and reading about your build are really making me want to start another one!
Thanks again!

Grant

[Nick09]

Thanks for the support. Yeah you would not be able to fit a graphics card in the NES(heat and space issues). If I tried installing my 9800GT graphics card I would have no room for the hard drive. So it's clearly is not an option. I could give up the idea of a blu-ray drive and get the fastest laptop DVD drive on newegg. So I can save space and money since I don't have $220 for a laptop sized blu-ray burner drive. It would not be that bad since I do own a PS3. My power supply has worked good so far but I think I might invest in a Pico-PSU that is a bit more power than yours just to be safe. That is because the processor itself takes 65 watts at max. Then the amount of usb devices you plug into the computer might affect it also. At the time I just went with a 300 watt power supply because the mini-itx format was not available at newegg and I wanted to be safe. Not to mention was that I did not need an external power adapter to use it.

EDIT: If I do get a pico-PSU I also invest into another fan(NES vents intake). I also should invest into another dead NES so I can just make cleaner cuts and overall more better. I may just take your design because I have been using a antec case as the power button and I'd rather mod the NES power for the motherboard.

[Nick09]

I finished my NES-PC. Here a quote from my DA account:

I have gotten the new motherboard, new 250Watt Mini-ITX PSU(APEVIA ITX-AP250W), new 64GB WD SSD, new Rosewill B,G,N Wireless(Rosewill RNX-N1), and the slim LG Blu-ray laptop internal drive(LG CT21N). I got the new power supply because my current PSU was just way to modded to use anymore and the cables were too long. The new PSU helped save some space since it was smaller and had shorter power cables. Since the new power supply was smaller I used some Velcro to keep it from moving. I also used the Velcro to mount the new Blu-Ray drive and the new SSD drive under the Blu-Ray drive. What is also important is that I used the industrial Velcro because this type of Velcro can take temperatures up to 225F so you don't have to worry about the adhesive slipping off when you are playing video games.

So far after playing a 720P video I saw that the GPU went up to 142F and the CPU was 125F to 131F. So because I have finally screwed down the case(took power switch from a case) all of the free air around the case cannot be taken in. So right now I don't see the possibility of a very abusive video gaming session but it should play yesterday's video games just fine and today's decently. I will have the whole day off tomorrow so I will try to play a more recent video games like Just Cause 2 and post my findings if the gpu survived or just exploded(of course that would not happen. The CPU would most likely burn out if that happen and I would be one depressed owner of a NES-PC).

I also could not get any new pictures uploaded because my camera is broken and the family camera is also missing. So I'm sorry if you really wanted to look at some pictures of the finished build.

[Nick09]

I have made a new video about how my NES-PC would do when running Guitar Hero 2 in emulation and a quick run of Just Cause 2.