Budget Media PC Spec

charltonfan1 · 10 Mar 2006 at 00:05

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 · 10 Mar 2006 at 10:06

Will onboard graphics be able to play visualisations?

mcmad · 10 Mar 2006 at 10:26

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 · 10 Mar 2006 at 10:26

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 · 10 Mar 2006 at 10:35

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 · 10 Mar 2006 at 11:21

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

ACESHIGH · 10 Mar 2006 at 12:03

marc mercer said:
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 · 10 Mar 2006 at 16:59

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