I had a spare Q6600 Core2Duo Processor, MSI Mobo, 2x2GB DDR2 800 SDRAM, and a Radeon 4850 laying around from my previous system and I threw it all together with a:
430W Corsair PSU
24x Sony Optiarc Dual Layer DVD Burner
1 TB Samsung Spinpoint HDD 7200 RPM
Wireless N Internal PCI Adaptor
Thermaltake Case
Any ideas what to do with it now? I've got XP on it, but it serves no purpose right now.
HPTC? Probably a bit noisy for that. How about a home server box for NAS and the like? I have a bare-bones gen 1 i3 system I built as an HTPC and a NAS about this time last year. Put 2 2TB drives in it in RAID 1, threw in my old TV tuner card, the thing is dead silent in my living room, and by throwing Hamachi on it to host a VPN, I have network drives I can access with my laptop anywhere with internet! It's very nice to have sometimes, I have to say, as I don't keep everything on my laptop. Stuff like old game ISOs. And random files, movies, etc.
"Chinese Sentries - they're cheap, crappy, and have little lights on the top!" - Pretendica
I'm with Mattd, if you don't have one already, turn it into a home theater PC. There something about changing the input on your TV and and going to the internet that excites me. Does it have spdif out? If it doesn't you can get a cheapo sound card, then run optical to your receiver... BAM 5.1 That SHIT rocks
I have a really basic NAS, music server and FTP (with encryption of course) I love the music server I can stream music from anywhere with an internet connection (with the help of a dynamic dns). I highly recommend using the Squeezebox Server, software, it's open source therefore it is free. You don't need to buy the Squeezebox audio stuff (SB Duet, Boom, Touch...) but it's a pretty cool thing to have plugged into your sound system. Streams MP3 to Squeezebox device or to any computer on the home network too, saves 30GB of music off my laptop.
I'm probably going to build a custom Linux NAS as soon as I wrap up my degree.
I'm eyeing maybe an Ivy Bridge machine. Waiting to see what Ivy actually ends up looking like. I was waiting for Sandy-E and the 3930K is awesome but too high-priced. Should've remembered the extremes are always overpriced...Ivy looks promising though.
"Chinese Sentries - they're cheap, crappy, and have little lights on the top!" - Pretendica