Budget Media PC Spec

[charltonfan1]

Want to build a quiet, cheap and not dog ugly media PC using mainly 2nd hand bits. Was thinking along the lines of:

• Socket A Shuttle - w/ onboard graphics
• Athlon XP - possibly 2500+ Barton
• 512MB RAM
• Samsung HDD for silence
• XP MCE

Anything else i should consider? or will this run ok?

Thanks

 

[charltonfan1]

Will onboard graphics be able to play visualisations?

 

[mcmad]

what exactly are you looking to play on it & what tv /projector etc do you have ? are you looking to upscale/do post processing etc ?

those are the the main thing that will determine spec

 

[pcoltrane]

Second hand socket A bartons are so expensive you can get a new socket 754 sempron for the same price.

Is a shuttle essential? If not consider the antec aria + a biostar 6100 matx board. It will be a lot cheaper and a lot faster .... but barely any bigger. The on board gfx on the biostar are decent enough for media centre too

Marc

 

[charltonfan1]

It'l be output onto either a TV via TV-OUT or S-Video or a small TFT via VGA/DVI

Shuttles arent essential, i would consider a 754 system. I'll have a look for the antec aria

 

[Valo]

I'd also put an extra 512MB Ram in there too

 

[ACESHIGH]

Second hand socket A bartons are so expensive you can get a new socket 754 sempron for the same price.

Is a shuttle essential? If not consider the antec aria + a biostar 6100 matx board. It will be a lot cheaper and a lot faster .... but barely any bigger. The on board gfx on the biostar are decent enough for media centre too

Marc

good advice, imo.

 

[Nutbusta]

Agreed. I'm about to build a friend an MCE machine out of a sempron 2800+ (which should oc to 2.4gig on stock volts), an Gigabyte K8N51GMF (with onboard 6100 graphics) and an Antec Minuet II

Just add HD, Remote and TV card