Media center upgrade

[Claire Drew]

I am in the process of looking for a replacement rig for below spec.

The new rig will be a HTPC system to run on my Samsung 37” LCD TV

The current one runs all things fine but looks a mess at the side of the TV in a standard tower.

I have found a system with the below specks and I wanted to know what your thoughts were.

My needs are for the following, watching downloaded films, P2P, Nero encoding, some gaming nothing top end, music, internet and office applications, work on pictures and general house hold stuff.

I have seen the following and am looking at option 1, but am not sure on the Intel processes and the AMD. I know Intel is currently the best but will the quad core have that extra bang? Any recommendations welcome………

Option 1,

• AMD Phenom 9550 Quad Core 2.2Ghz CPU
• 4Gb (2X2Gb) Corsair XMS2 PC6400 DDR2 Memory
• Abit AN-M2HD nForce 630a HDMI Motherboard
• Antec NSK2480 Case - 380W PSU
• 750Gb SATA Hard Drive
• 20X DVD RW Lightscribe Drive

£344 Inc Vat & Delivery

Option 2,


• Antec NSK2480 Case - 380W PSU
• Abit I-N73HD Motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 Processor
• 2X2GB PC5300 RAM
• 750GB SATA Hard Drive
• Silver DVDRW
• HDMI Cable

£316 Inc Vat