I've found myself with an itch to build another PC. I've got a house full as it is however this will be used as a media PC in my room hooked upto my 32 inch TV which is only 720p or 1080i as I'm too cheap to buy a new TV. ITX or MATX preferred, must be capabale of 1080p when I get round to replacing my TV. Happy to go intel or AMD (an go APU if need be) Looking to keep the build to under £200. Parts I don't need - Optical Drive SSD Hard Drives Graphics card (GTX660 or a GT610 in my parts box) A windows licence Would like the motherboard to have decent soundcard but there is room for a proper dedicated card instead. It will be used for streaming,watching DVD's and my library of digital content TV shows etc. Listening to music and very light gaming. Your suggestions on a postcard please
I would've thought a thinITX build would be your best bet, those ECS boards that keep coming up are under £20. Cheap chip and a DDR3L SODIMM in it could be secondhand, you'd barely be on around £80 then just need a case. The computer could use Steam streaming from one of your other rigs.
For "cheap", "small" and "media centre" then one of the many, many second-hand USFF business boxes that get flogged from the usual suspects (Morgan, SVP, etc) sounds like just the ticket.
Have a look at NUC's, you can get a barebones for around £100 and they are so small and silent you can mount them on the back of the TV. E.g. this one is £121, has dual band AC wireless, takes DDR3L (cheaper): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0167PHS6U I built an Intel Pentium NUC for my mother in NZ over xmas as an office PC, was very impressed. If you only want to use it as a media PC then bang for buck/size/power they are fantastic.
