how would this rig run as a htpc?

[magnumty]

with ram and hard drive upgrades and of coarse a tuner card, thanks for any opinions..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...ealNews-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA

 

[Rike]

Too weak for my tastes. Weak CPU, and the graphics are uber basic. As a file server, it would be fine, but there's a reason it's $150.

 

[manimal]

You could do sd on that just fine, but 1080P would choke it if the bitrate is high.

 

[Shawn]

It would suck.

 

[vshah]

my p4 3.0 plays 720p h.264 fine using corecodec, but stutters on 1080p, for reference.

 

[heyheybooboo]

It wouldn't be so bad ... hard to say how loud it might be.

You would need to purchase a DVD drive, a $20 5.1 sound card (with optical out to pass audio to your receiver it that's your thang) and find an AGP card which can off-load h.264 from the cpu and give your video a boost. Counting your tuner card you could be in for less than $350.

I'll also wager that there are most likely some pretty good deals out there this week on a 'home-theater-in-a-box'

 

[sivart]

Most business machines aren't designed to be super quiet. I'd be more worried about ambient noise after I upgraded all the components.