HTPC Spec

[markwilliams82]

I'm going to be building a HTPC soon (budget £350-£400)

Can anyone give me some ideas on spec?

I need the following;

Mobo (would like to have HDMI output)
Memory
CPU
HDD (2 would be nice, 1 boot and a large drive for storage)
Optical drive (don't need Blu Ray as use PS3 for that Blu Ray playback
PSU
Media Case (capable of holding 2+ HDD's)

 

[markwilliams82]

Ok so case wise, it cant be deep otherwise it wont fit in my tv cabinet.
I've come across the thermaltake SD100 which seems a good one or the Silverstone Grandia GD04B. Has anyone got any experience with this? I'm leaning to the Silverstone as it can take standard ATX PSU's and 2 HDDs

Based on this could anyone give me a spec for everything but the case with a budget of £250-300 (max)

 

[markwilliams82]

That sounds a good spec, will the case accept a slimline dvd drive with no problems?

Will XBMC run on a windows PC without an nvidia gpu?