So I am going to be building a HTPC for a family member as their 5 year old PC can not handle HD video (on iPlayer, downloaded movie files etc). My budget is around £400 but really the lower the better, would rather save money than upgrade specs as long as it can handle HD video and general usage comfortably. The needs for this PC are pretty basic and I imagine something like an intel E5200 or AMD Athlon II X2 240 would be fine for this as the user won't be doing much intensive (web browsing, some word processing etc). But as I am new to PC building I am completely unsure as to what motherboard to go for (Wouldn't mnd miniITX form factor but this seems to inflate the price for many parts) and whether it would be better to use discrete graphics or go for something like an i3 530 with inbuilt graphics. The PC is mainly used connected to a HDTV so the mobo or Gfx card will need HDMi out. I would appreciate any advice on graphics cards, cpu/mobo combos etc. Thanks. p.s. Budget does not include screen, OS, mouse, keyboard or speakers, these are not needed. Blu ray playback is not needed and for storage 320Gb or 500 Gb would be more than enough
Would this be decent for HD video playback? I wouldn't even know where to start with a socket775 or AMD build.
it looks plenty powerful enough to playback HD video, i would consider a branded known PSU though, maybe an Antec Earthwatts, OCZ mod-xtream something along those lines. I personally prefer a dedicated GPU, but i have not used the i3 built-in one and i don't know how well it handles playback, i would imagine it is fine, but at worst you could set it up and test it and add a video card if need be.
Yeah, a branded PSu is a good idea, I need one as cheap as possible though. WRT the on-chip graphics, if this is not great for HD playback I would rather buy a lower priced CPU as it is pointless paying £50 extra for the CPU if I am not using the graphins and don't need the extra juice. If anyone could suggest a budget case & PSU which are semi decent that would be great too. This will likely not consume much power as there will not be any overclocking or high powered GPU's and it will be more of a build and done job rather than being upgraded so extra case features such as hot swap bays etc will be wholly unneeded.
Take a look at these: This case: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150297 Pretty cheap, and works fine. A bit large though. This PSU: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152505 About as cheap as a branded PSU gets, and hardwaresecrets called it the best entry-level PSU they have seen. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/794/10
