The Best $1,000 High-End Home Theater PC Build – April 2024
A True Home Theater Powerhouse!
If you want to build the best home theater PC (HTPC) for $1,000, this is the system for you! The $1,000 High-End 4K Home Theater PC Build may be sleek and compact, but it packs in plenty of impressive gear, plus a lot of room for expansion. It features a stylish design that will blend in perfectly with the rest of your AV components, which is great for keeping other members of your household happy. Behind that unimposing façade, however, lies the power of a seriously tricked-out PC!
This Month’s Build, Featuring AMD!
For April 2024, the $1,000 High-End 4K HTPC Build features Intel’s 14-core, 20-thread Core i5-13500, a multi-tasking powerhouse that also happens to be very efficient. Just as important is its onboard graphics chip, which means you can avoid paying top dollar for an add-in video card. The best part: HDMI 2.1 is provided on the motherboard we recommend, which is a huge benefit to HTPC users, as it allows beyond full 4K/60Hz output to a TV. And while this system isn’t set up for gaming by default, we list an optional drop-in video card that will turn it into a serious gaming powerhouse!
On the storage side, the $1,000 High-End 4K HTPC Build goes with a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 solid-state drive, which will provide incredible responsiveness for your operating system and applications. Need more space? No problem – you can add two more M.2 solid-state drives and up to three high-capacity hard drives for media storage. You can also add an optional Blu-Ray burner for optical media access. In terms of memory, we recommend a full 32GB of ultra-fast DDR5-6400 RAM, which will provide plenty of breathing room for any high-end task, including video production.
The 4K HTPC Build is housed in the stylish SilverStone GD09 case, the most compact ATX-class HTPC chassis on the market, which we reviewed right here. For power, we go with an efficient Gold-rated 550W power supply, and cooling is supplied by a low-profile heatsink from Deepcool. Also included in the price is next-gen 802.11ax (WiFi 6E) wireless networking, built into the motherboard. Simply put, the $1,000 High-End 4K Home Theater PC Build is a dream HTPC at an affordable price!
Parting Thoughts
The $1,000 High-End 4K HTPC Build has plenty of expansion potential, so be sure to check out the optional components we recommend at the end of this guide, as well as our favorite accessories! Throughout this guide, we provide product links to Amazon, which will auto-convert for readers in Canada, the UK, and parts of the EU. As always, we’d appreciate if you’d use our product links, which helps support continued development of this and all of our buyer’s guides.
Required Components
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CPU –Intel Core i5-13500
$200The Guru’s TipThe 13th-Gen “Raptor Lake” CPUs build upon the breakout success of the 12th-Gen models, Intel’s most impressive release in a decade. The Core i5-13500 is an absolutely productivity powerhouse, thanks to packing in 6 performance cores and an additional 8 efficiency cores, for 14 in total. It can easily beat any AMD CPU anywhere near its pricepoint in productivity and content creation.This CPU comes with a cooler, but we recommend a much quieter model later in this guide.
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Motherboard –Gigabyte B760 AORUS Elite AX
$170The Guru’s TipThis B760 board from Gigabyte allows you to tap into the potential of Intel’s latest CPUs a great price. You get a potent a 12+1+1 power design, a Gen 4 PCIe video card slot and two additional expansion slots, three PCIe Gen 4 M.2 slots, 10 USB ports (including a Type-C), plus built-in WiFi 6E.This board has both HDMI 2.1 and Displayport 1.4, meaning you can easily run any monitor or TV using the built-in graphics on the CPU we recommend without a video card in your system!
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Memory –G.Skill 2x16GB Ripjaws S5 DDR5-6400 CL32
$110The Guru’s TipFor the ultimate in speed, you must go with DDR5 RAM, but not just any DDR5 RAM, because you need high-frequency DDR5 to blow past DDR4 RAM performance. And that’s what you get with G.Skill’s Trident Z5 kit running at DDR5-6400 with timings of 32-39-39-102 at 1.40V. This is the real deal when it comes to DDR5 performance!The high speed of this RAM will help not only the CPU, but the built-in graphics too, as it borrows system RAM for its image processing. Just make sure to enable the faster speed in the motherboard's UEFI to take advantage of it!
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Solid-State Drive –TeamGroup MP44L 1TB PCIe 4.0
$69The Guru’s TipThe MP44L PCIe 4.0, which blows past previous PCIe Gen3-based drives by harnessing the power of the PCIe Gen4 interface, is an absolute bargain of a high-end drive. It can hit up to 5,000MB/s in sequential operations!1TB of capacity will be enough for any apps you'd possibly want on an HTPC, but for serious media storage, add the hard drive in the optional component section later in this guide.
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Case –SilverStone GD09-C
$113The Guru’s TipThis case is the perfect choice for a high-end HTPC. At just under 27 liters, it’s the smallest ATX-class HTPC case on the market, and allows you to use powerful video cards or other expansion cards, plus up to two 3.5″ hard drives and an optical drive. For cooling, it includes one pre-installed 120mm low-noise fan, with room for two more. And this updated version of the GD09 includes a USB Type-C connector up front that interfaces with modern peripherals.At 17.32" wide, this case is designed to stack neatly into an AV rack.
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Power Supply –SilverStone ST55F-GS
$84The Guru’s TipSilverStone’s Strider series offers exceptional performance at a great price. This model is a perfect example of that, offering up 550W of Gold-rated power, fully-modular cables, a low-noise fan design, and an ultra-compact form factor at just 140mm deep.While you don't need 550W for this build, this one offers excellent efficiency at a great price. Its compact size is also critical for fitting it in the case.
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CPU Cooler –DeepCool AN600
$55The Guru’s TipThe excellent low-profile cooler provides a huge upgrade versus most other low-profile coolers. The slim 15mm-thick fan uses fluid dynamic bearings, unusual in this class and a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to eliminating noise. It’s also one of the very few high-performance low-profile coolers that can be mounted so it does not obstruct the RAM slots, although it does offer 40mm of clearance, which is enough for standard low-profile RAM. The entire heatsink/fan assembly sits at 67mm tall.While the CPU we recommend includes a cooler, this model will be far quieter, making it a better match for an HTPC. Note that if equipping this system with the optional Blu-Ray drive, you'll need to orient the cooler with the heatsink over the motherboard I/O shroud, not the RAM.
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Operating System –Windows 11 Home (USB) @Newegg
$139The Guru’s TipWindows 11 built on everything people loved about Windows 10, and then took it to 11! It adds significant under-the-hood changes to make it faster and more secure, and of course, the interface is sleek too! Note that we’re linking to Newegg, because Amazon long ago stopped selling this physical USB version of Windows, which is the most convenient one to use.Windows 11 is what you want on your PC to maximize performance!
Optional Products
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Video Card –PowerColor Radeon RX 6750 XT 12GB Fighter
$340 The Guru’s TipTurn your HTPC into a gaming hot rod with this drop-in GPU, which is a perfect fit for the case!
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Optical Drive –LG 16x Blu-Ray Burner
$60 The Guru’s TipAs a warning, we've seen this model sell out recently, and we wouldn't be surprised if LG discontinues Blu-Ray drive sales soon given the declining use of such drives.
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Hard Drive –Seagate Barracuda 4TB
$85 The Guru’s TipWhile this drive spins at just 5400RPM, that's a benefit for HTPC use, because it's much quieter than a standard 7200RPM drive, and frankly, that extra "speed" doesn't do anything for reading media files.
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Sound Card –Creative Sound Blaster AE-7
$210 The Guru’s TipYou also get a digital audio output on this card, perfect for outputting to an AV receiver.
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The Home Theater Keyboard/Trackpad Combo –Logitech K400
$27 The Guru’s TipThe keyboard connects using a tiny USB receiver.
Total Cost: $940
Required Components
- CPU – Intel Core i5-13500 ($200)
- Motherboard – Gigabyte B760 AORUS Elite AX ($170)
- Memory – G.Skill 2x16GB Ripjaws S5 DDR5-6400 CL32 ($110)
- Solid-State Drive – TeamGroup MP44L 1TB PCIe 4.0 ($69)
- Case – SilverStone GD09-C ($113)
- Power Supply – SilverStone ST55F-GS ($84)
- CPU Cooler – DeepCool AN600 ($55)
- Operating System – Windows 11 Home (USB) @Newegg ($139)
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