Budget media centre PC.

[Skullfish1]

ALrighty, a few questions for you lot.

I'm speccing my dad an upgrade for a media centre pc. Not strict budget as yet, but cheaper is better.

I'm looking at this as a base:

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£97.99 £97.99
MB-064-GI Gigabyte GA_945PL_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-064-GI)
£57.99 £57.99
MY-066-CS Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC4200 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (VS1GBKIT533D2) (MY-066-CS)
£74.99 £74.99

I need to add to that a graphics card capable of spewing out 720i HD resolution. I'll also stick in a low powered PSU (was thinking of the 430W seasonic silent) and a creative XFi to go with his amp/sound system.

If I can fit it in the budget then a cheap but quiet case, a quiet cooler for the CPU and some passive cooling for GPU might be in order as well.

Can anyone point me at a GPU, can anyone see any glaring errors in this plan so far, and has anyone anything else to add?

cheers.

 

[Tony Williams]

If you don't intend on gaming (or anything GPU intensive) any cheapish video card should do (within reason, make sure it has the dvi/vga or whatever you intend to use), I am using a PCI nVidia 5200 on a 720p set. I do intend to upgrade myself as I am starting to run more and more games. HTH.

also 720 = 1280x720