media spec

psalliss · 19 Nov 2007 at 19:05

how does this look. dont really need to play games got 360 for that will be for movies, pics and music and some web browsing
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Samsung SH-S203NRSMN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA (£22.31)
Shuttle XPC SG33G6 Deluxe Aluminium Barebones System - (£284.34)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM -(£70.49)
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2(£82.24)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 400GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (£56.39)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £76.36
Sub Total : £503.94
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £89.76
Total : £602.65

psalliss · 20 Nov 2007 at 16:04

guys would appreciate some imput on this pls

toothe · 21 Nov 2007 at 09:33

you going be using high definition stuff or just SD. cause you might want a card with a built in hd-decoder take some strain of the cpu. and maybe HDMI / HDCP connection.

Also do you really need 4gb for playing films?

psalliss · 21 Nov 2007 at 12:23

mainly sd stuff. but will buy a hd drive when prices drop a little more and will look at buying a better graphics card a little later also. the plan is eventually it will be networked and all my dvds will be stored on hard drives.

as for 4gb i probably dont just thought with prices being cheap then i would.

Reality Bites · 21 Nov 2007 at 12:31

for the money, i'd prefer a sugo, psu and MB.

toothe · 21 Nov 2007 at 12:33

personally id go with 2gb of ram. can always buy more at a later date and prices are unlikely to go up that much. also faster ram may come down in price and u may want to upgrade. id try not to overkill the system, sometimes more ram can make it slower. it is cheap though. id be tempted to go for a 500gb hdd or 2 400gb hdds in a raid config and save some money on the ram. your choice tho.

i just built my micro-atx pc (still may need a psu though think you seen my thread) i managed to get a cheap e6550 cpu. so installed a 500gb hdd, dvd-rw 2gb geil ram (is cheap and performance is great). am installing a bettwe graphics card got a 3870xt if the psu can cope. total cost was cheaper than yours but your case is a lot more and i get xp/vista for free from msdn so theres 70 quid saved

psalliss · 21 Nov 2007 at 14:45

cheers will probably be going for 2gb then.

what do you think of this case

http://www.apevia.com/product.php?pid=218

toothe · 21 Nov 2007 at 15:08

not sure, not rly a fan of the shuttle type cases. but i think cases like http://images.tomshardware.com/2006/04/06/confessions_of_aa_serial_htpc_builder_part_2/mega_pc.jpg < look really nice. i remember the old version. was nice as well

TheMorningStar · 22 Nov 2007 at 13:12

just a note that shuttle only has 2 ram slots if you want 4gb later you will have a set of ram sticks you dont want.

however if its just a media system im not sure if you will ever use 4gb

toothe · 22 Nov 2007 at 13:54

yeah i think there are much better value cases around though. msi mega cases are good but limited hw. cant you get a full size atx case but a small version? or a matx?