Media PC help needed

[adelburn]

I'll b taking a waddle over to OCUK saturday to buy me dad components for a media centre pc. I'm a bit out of touch with current hardware and his requirements are basic surfing, HD movie/TV watching and little to no gaming. All components needed apart from monitor, even mouse keyboard needed.

Budget of around £300, can go upto £500 if defo worth it.

Any help muchly appreciated.

 

[adelburn]

Abit AN-M2HD nForce 520 Micro ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.10GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £35.99
(£42.29) £35.99
(£42.29)
Antec Fusion Black HTPC Case - 430HE Watt PSU £96.99
(£113.96) £96.99
(£113.96)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Samsung SH-S203BEBN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Sub Total : £285.94
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £51.78
Total : £347.67



What you think about that. This is good enough, is it not? anything you would personally change?

 

[sunama]

I would go the Intel route.

I am about to build a PC myself. It will be my 2nd PC and be used for internet, word processing and most importantly to display videos/movies, etc on a plasma screen. It must be able to decode and display HD material. To guarantee this, you should ideally get an Intel Core2Duo based system. Im not saying that an AMD based system cant cut it, just that with Intel you will run into far fewer problems.

Also, the good thing with an Intel C2D system is that you can leave all the decoding of HD material to your CPU without any worries of skipping frames. Personally, I think the CPU you have chosen would struggle to decode HD material, on its own.

An Intel C2D E21x0 will be fine. Get a suitable motherboard to overclock it till you get no skipped frames.

You can also save money by going for a cheaper case and a lower power PSU. 430W is overkill if you arent going to run 5-10 hard disks.