HDPC/HDTV Computer Specification

[Curiosityx]

Greetings, i used to be faily upto date with PC technology but have been out the game for sometime so to speak concentrating other area's as such im somewhat stuck as to where to start.

A friend of mine is looking for a pre-built or customised system that he can connect to his HDTV which will be used as a monitor with the ability to play audio through it as well, all of which he would like to control via a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Now ive been looking at "The £300-£1250 Tower, Full & HTPC System Weekly Builds Thread" which look very comprehensive as well as the pre-build systems.

Could someone recommend from there experience a system between £300 and £600 that would do the job along with the cables and connectors used to connect to said HDTV for audio and video output.

Regards

 

[Conan257]

Any dual core "core" or AMD chip, suitable motherboard and a 4670 for video... Connect with an hdmi cable and thats about it...

 

[Dr Malone]

AMD is the way to go to keep the costs down. Get a board with Nvidia or AMD graphics onboard and a DVI port. If you don't plan on sending the audio over the same cable (say you want to take a coax or optical out to a hifi instead) then make sure it has that as well. Right now i would pick this board

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-314-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=807

(it covers all of the above) with any dual core you fancy. An additional graphics card is not needed but if you do want one get a passive one. A 3450with lots of memory is more than enough for the job. (Unless you want to run games on it). My old 3800+ runs media centre through a 32" flat screen via the onboard video of a nvidia 7050 with no problems so any of today's chips will be fine.

Buy one of these:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=KB-001-KE&tool=3

and a nice quiet hard drive, optical drive and psu. IMO getting a nice case is the tricky part. I like the hiper media centre. You will want a MCE remote too, I basically only use the keyboard for loggin on and ordering pizza.
Should not cost more than 300 -350 all in.

 

[Conan257]

I'm currently running hdmi from onboad gfx with the high def audio through the hdmi cable... however I get bad audio artifacts that I believe is interferance...

An ATI gfx card should fix my problems, and i'd suggest it to other people as well.