Media Center PC Build

[James Bond]

I'm in the market for a media center PC, but not really sure what I need.

Where does the bottleneck usually lie when these boxes are in use? Video card to stream? HDD Speed? CPU??

Once I get some info I'll begin speccing parts. Hopefully I'll find a nice CPU/MOBO Combo then buy some cheap RAM and a 1TB HDD.

Any advice welcome!

 

[krnmastersgt]

Standard media output or HD? HD usually needs a decent GPU and/or CPU with hardware acceleration to output with nice image quality and speed, standard on the other hand works with pretty much anything.

 

[swbsam]

This is what I ordered today, for the same purpose
*Amd Athlon X2 Be-2300 cpu and gigabyte GA-MA78GM mother board
*Samsung spinpoint 1TB hard drive
*Avermedia AverTVHD TUNER CARD
*hec Minitower computer case with 585w power supply
*2 gig ddr2 memory
$336 total

I should have spent more money on the case, but I don't really care since it's for a bedroom tv. Also, the 780G chipset (amd) is pretty much the best integrated solution now, with HD video acceleration

 

[krnmastersgt]

The integrated GF9 boards aren't that bad either, I recommend you look for AT's round-up of integrated gpu's and see which is best for you.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Combo Dealio Numero Uno: $111

Combo Dealio Numero Dos: $110

Gigabyte (Numero Uno) has the Realtek 889A which would be my choice over the Asus (Numero Dos) Realtek ALC1200 (which fairly is a 889A but Asus put some VooDoo on it - no Dolby IIRC)

 

[James Bond]

Thanks for all the replies

Originally posted by: swbsam
This is what I ordered today, for the same purpose
*Amd Athlon X2 Be-2300 cpu and gigabyte GA-MA78GM mother board
*Samsung spinpoint 1TB hard drive
*Avermedia AverTVHD TUNER CARD
*hec Minitower computer case with 585w power supply
*2 gig ddr2 memory
$336 total

I should have spent more money on the case, but I don't really care since it's for a bedroom tv. Also, the 780G chipset (amd) is pretty much the best integrated solution now, with HD video acceleration

So that will stream HD content without any trouble?

 

[James Bond]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
Standard media output or HD? HD usually needs a decent GPU and/or CPU with hardware acceleration to output with nice image quality and speed, standard on the other hand works with pretty much anything.

Definitely HD. We have a 65" DLP (1080P).

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: James Bond
Thanks for all the replies

Originally posted by: swbsam
This is what I ordered today, for the same purpose
*Amd Athlon X2 Be-2300 cpu and gigabyte GA-MA78GM mother board
*Samsung spinpoint 1TB hard drive
*Avermedia AverTVHD TUNER CARD
*hec Minitower computer case with 585w power supply
*2 gig ddr2 memory
$336 total

I should have spent more money on the case, but I don't really care since it's for a bedroom tv. Also, the 780G chipset (amd) is pretty much the best integrated solution now, with HD video acceleration

So that will stream HD content without any trouble?

No problem. The onboard video chip off-loads h.264 processing from the cpu. I think Tom's did Blu-ray playback with a 1.8GHz single-core Sempron.

Here's a Gigabyte 780g / X2 4850e combo for $128 if you want a little extra horsepower. System power consumption probably 45w @ idle and 75w during Blu-ray playback.