Help build me a PC!

[jacktesterson]

Hi Folks,


This is my goal. Due to the family growing I lost my office. I have been using a laptop for the last year.

I want to build a Media Center PC.

I basically want a PC for backing up divx movies, blu ray movie rips and dvd rips. I am putting it in my entertainment center and connecting it to my DSL and directly to my 50 inch Plasma TV. Its 720p/1080i, 1366 x 768p TV.

I want to be able to store all my collection on this PC, as well as play all my movies directly onto my TV.

The only thing I have laying around the house that isnt 5+ yrs old is a 500 GB SATA hard drive thats in a external case that I could use.

I have to keep the build as cheap as possible. I can add hard drives as time goes.

I am located in Canada and primarily use NCIX.com for my shopping.

Can anyone give me some builds/ideas on what to use? I really have no idea in what I need. For example, is a Gigabyte Motherboard with Integrated video hdmi/digital audio good enough to play my movies? Or is a Video card really needed?

Oh, I also have a copy of Windows XP Pro I can use on this PC.

Please help me out ASAP. Im anxious in ordering!

 

[jacktesterson]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Dual Core Proecessor Socket AM2 2.6GHZ Retail Box

In Stock 32166 $67.98 $67.98
Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H AMD780G ATX AM2+ 2PCI-E SATA RAID Sound GLAN 1394 CrossFireX HDMI Motherboard

In Stock 29825 $92.99 $92.99
Crucial Rendition 1GB 1X1GB PC2-5300 DDR2-667 240PIN DIMM Memory *IR-$3*
In Stock 18727 $15.99 $31.98
Antec Atlas Server Case Black 4X5.25 4X3.5INT Witn 550W TRUEPOWER2.0 Power Supply
Limit to 1 per customer.

In Stock 20165 $129.98 $129.98
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 3.5IN 500GB SATA2 8.5MS 7200RPM 32MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive OEM

In Stock 27144 $66.98 $66.98


Is this too much PC?

 

[coolpurplefan]

newegg is coming to canada

 

[Roguestar]

If you do infact wait until newegg opens their canada store you may get some fantastic bargains on the first day. Perhaps take a look at their offers and make another thread on the day it opens?

 

[zerogear]

Originally posted by: Bigystyle
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Dual Core Proecessor Socket AM2 2.6GHZ Retail Box

In Stock 32166 $67.98 $67.98
Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H AMD780G ATX AM2+ 2PCI-E SATA RAID Sound GLAN 1394 CrossFireX HDMI Motherboard

In Stock 29825 $92.99 $92.99
Crucial Rendition 1GB 1X1GB PC2-5300 DDR2-667 240PIN DIMM Memory *IR-$3*
In Stock 18727 $15.99 $31.98
Antec Atlas Server Case Black 4X5.25 4X3.5INT Witn 550W TRUEPOWER2.0 Power Supply
Limit to 1 per customer.

In Stock 20165 $129.98 $129.98
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 3.5IN 500GB SATA2 8.5MS 7200RPM 32MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive OEM

In Stock 27144 $66.98 $66.98


Is this too much PC?

This should be fine, but if I do have one recommendation its to have at least 2GB of RAM, since the integrated video will take up a portion of your RAM for video RAM.

If you do use DVR function/TV Tuners, keep in mind, its about 500MB of RAM per video stream recording, and if you are looking for TV tuners, look for hardware mpeg-2 encoding. Such as AverTV M780 (Combo PCI-E)

 

[heyheybooboo]

If you can find one up there in CanLand this is a really nice case ....

SILVERSTONE LASCALA SST-LC13-S ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Egg Linkage

 

[Raduque]

Need more storage.

Also, you should really use a proper front end software: Either XP MCE or Vista MC, or one of the multitude of others (Though IMO, XPMCE and VMC are the most polished)

 

[dmw16]

only 2GB of RAM? GO with 4GB, it's so cheap.

 

[jyesterday001]

yeah, why not pay $20 more and get 4gb of ram its cheaper that way anyway.