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
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
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
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
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
