I had a real hard time building an HTPC quiet enough to use for movies and music. The real problem is that graphics cards powerful enough to decode H.264 for 10

I had a real hard time building an HTPC quiet enough to use for movies and music. The real problem is that graphics cards powerful enough to decode H.264 for 1080p material usually have big, loud fans. nVidia recently started incorporating HDCP and onboard H.264 decoding on their low-cost 8500 and 8600 graphics cards which is a huge relief. Some companies such as Gigabyte even make completely fan-less versions of these cards for <$200. Now if blu-ray drives would just come down in price I'll be set :)