mATX htpc bundle spec for ~£100

[sunama]

I wouldnt go for the ati 2400pro as it struggles with 1080i. I believe there is either a driver or hardware issue, but its not known if it will be fixed or not. Best not to risk it.

Have a read of this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/26/avivo_hd_vs_purevideo/page15.html

The ati 2600xt comes highly recommended. In saying that, then 2600Pro is also a nice piece of kit. It is very similar to the 2600XT. Some people have reported that the 2400 series of video cards offer poorer image quality than the 2600 series.

Another thing is that if you plan to download HD material (encoded in x264), then your video card will not decode it. It will be totally CPU dependent. IMO, get a strong CPU, this way you cover all your bases. Cost may prohibit this, but you might be able to pick up an Intel C2D E21x0 CPU, 2nd hand, on the cheap.

 

[mattyrigby00]

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140, S775, 1.6 GHz, 800MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2x 512KB Cache, Retail £35.89 £42.17

1GB (2x512MB) Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC2-5300 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 £17.54 £20.61

256MB Sapphire HD 2400 PRO PCI-E(x16) 64Bit 800MHz GDDR2, GPU 525MHz Dual DVI/S-Video, Retail £24.97 £29.34

Abit SG-95 SIS 662, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667, SATA I, SATA RAID, uATX, On Board VGA £23.90 £28.08

Net Total £102.30
Carriage: £5.99
V.A.T £18.95
TOTAL £127.24

the abit sg-95 doesnt support the core 2 duo range i think

 

[lozza]

Well I have now got a E2140 and 2gb of PC 6400 just waiting on a mobo which now looks like i might go for the G33M-DS2R.

sunama, thanks for the info - the HD side of things will come later as the TV i currently have doesn't support HD atm. there is quite a price difference between the 2400 and the 2600 so heres hoping that by the time i get HD ready they will have reduced a lot