How about these for a silent media machine?

cavemanoc · 21 Mar 2008 at 19:58

Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI AMD 780G - £62.26
X2 3600+ - £24.66
OCZ 2x1Gb - £24.66

Purely for HD TV + internet, have a 'proper' machine for everything else.

Also need:
PSU - needs to be inaudible in the same room as it'll be 'always on'.
TV card - not interested in recording TV, just watching.
CPU Cooler - Again, passive would be ideal, if not properly silent?

As you can tell I'm trying to do it as cheaply as possible, so please say no to watercooled Zalman psu's at £420+vat

Given the price, I'm also tempted by the LG Combo Blu Ray / HD DVD

Will be running Vista - probably 32bit unless you can convince me otherwise (always want more RAM, but don't think it's needed?)

Tosk · 21 Mar 2008 at 23:42

PSU - needs to be inaudible in the same room as it'll be 'always on'.

depends on the case your going for

TV card - not interested in recording TV, just watching.

Freeview Digital or Sky Digital?

CPU Cooler - Again, passive would be ideal, if not properly silent?

again depends on the case your gonna be using

case wise are you after a classic desktop case? or a shuttle style case. or a mini town?
and whats price range do you have in mind for the case?

MattU · 22 Mar 2008 at 00:02

Personally I like the Antec Fusion case - The case fans and PSU are extremely quiet, it is just over £100, which isn't bad considering it has case, psu, 3 case fans, lcd/vfd display and an IR sensor.

For CPU cooler, I went for a Termalright SI-128 + 120mm Sharkoon fan in two media centres I just built, it 'just' fits in that case, but this was quite expensive for a cooler. Again, it's almost silent though.

For the TV card the only one I have experience of is Hauppauge Nova-T 500. This has dual digital tuners and isn't too expensive - I never bothered recording much before either, but it's come in very useful.

cavemanoc · 23 Mar 2008 at 01:48

The case is a Full Tower, so space is no object.
The padding is 6mm neoprene, so pretty good, but would rather not have any moving parts if I can avoid it.
TV card is for Cable - will probably go HD soon.