HTPC, Sort of.... (need help)

[jspeicher]

I have a 26" LCD HDTV. Currently it is in my study, hooked up via VGA to my PC so I can use it as a dual monitor and watch movies from my PC on it.

I want to move the LCD to the living room and build a small rig that can handle what my main rig is doing now - playing HD video/movies, store them as well.

Are there any minimum requirements for handling HD video? I dont want to order some cheap parts and find that I can't play HD.

Currently my main rig is:
Athlon X2 3800+
2GB PC3200
x850xt pci-e video, dvi and vga out

I guess my question is, can i build a cheapo rig with a bunch of storage?

Anthlon 64 939 CPU
1GB RAM
500+ GB HD

And for video? Can I get something like the following to connect directly to the LCD via HDMI?

MSI NX8500GT HDCP Ready
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814127301

 

[KAZANI]

If you go for an X2, look for an AM2 one since the 939's are being phased out and tend to be either costlier or come with no heatsink for the same price as the AM2 counterparts.

Since you will use this machine for HD content I would suggest you opt for a graphics card from the ATI HD 2000 series which comes with a Unified Video Decoder (UVD) to offload HD content decoding from the CPU, which works better than Nvidia's similar solution.

For a 12 dollars more than the card you mentioned, here is a nice and quiet offer from Gigabyte.

 

[jspeicher]

thanks, that gives me a better starting point.