Opinions and suggestions for a media PC

[Zadock]

Hi folks,

I'm thinking of building a media station.

I still have the following pieces of hardware lying around:

Asus A8N Standard (SLi) - S939 motherboard
1Gb Corsair Value RAM DDR
250Gb SATA HDD

Now, so far as I know that motherboard will support the X2 dual cores? (I did put the latest update for the bios on before I got my new rig).

So... just wonder what people think about using those parts + a nice case (thinking antec). Does anywhere still stock the 939 X2s? most places I've tried haev been out of stock. Also which CPU would you suggest I go for?

Was also thinking of getting a ATi 2600HD with an HDMI output...

Any suggestions welcome.

cheers

[MSIC]

Sure that's fine - you occasionally find these dual core (socket 939) Athlon X2's in retail, otherwise you might have to try ebay.
Here you go, OCUK
It's worth trying to see if you can remove any small buzy motherboard fan from the Asus, i did (although my case has generally good airflow). I'd recommend most Antec cases for HTPC's with good airflow (the Sonata range is good, or the Solo, but often something like the NSK 4480 comes with a good PSU for the same money, so basically 'free').

[Zadock]

Cheers MSIC,

do you think I should opt for some better RAM? I expect I could pick up some good DDR for not a lot now. Also is it worth getting the 3800+ or digging around for say a 4400+ cpu?

I never had the north bridge cooler problem on my A8N, I must have been one of the lucky ones.

Oop! also need to budget for a TV card... I'll have a look at those to.

[MSIC]

I didnt even mean a problematic buzy fan, it's just that even when fully working it's a small thing and makes some noise, not great for a HTPC.
Be careful about how much money you commit to this project - it's all based on old tech, and will prove to be false economy if you start spending towards £100 or so on a socket 939 chip and DDR memory.
For what it's worth, £45 will get you a new motherboard, £40 a new CPU and £30 2 Gig of newer memory. And you could sell your current stuff on ebay or here.

[DanceswithUnix]

Note that most media PC cases are mico-ATX, and no amount of hammering will get that full ATX motherboard to fit! There are full ATX cases around, but they tend to be very expensive.

My Antec Fusion based machine uses a socket AM2 based 3000+ CPU which so far has proved more than necessary. If you stick to freeview digital TV cards then no real CPU power is required for encoding and the graphics card does the decoding so all the CPU does is move data around and background transcode/scheduling work.

[Zadock]

I didnt even mean a problematic buzy fan, it's just that even when fully working it's a small thing and makes some noise, not great for a HTPC.
Be careful about how much money you commit to this project - it's all based on old tech, and will prove to be false economy if you start spending towards £100 or so on a socket 939 chip and DDR memory.
For what it's worth, £45 will get you a new motherboard, £40 a new CPU and £30 2 Gig of newer memory. And you could sell your current stuff on ebay or here.

Good points guys, I think newer kit would be a better idea and it would give me more freeroam with case to. There is a 2nd hand PC shop in the town I live in, dodgy bloke runs it lol! but I'll see if he wants to buy any of my parts.

I'll stick a bit of cash aside for the next couple of months and then post up here again when some specs to see what you all think.

Cheers

[dangel]

My silverstone case has plenty of room (full ATX) and cost 60-70ukp when I bought it. I prefered having the larger case as i've more room for expansion and I have plenty of room on the lower shelf of my av rack (next to the reciever which is the same size). See Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

Depends on your needs though

[MSIC]

I'm thinking of building a media station.

Just one thought that i should have asked at the start, but the above phrase is quite ambiguous actually. It's worth being as specific about your needs as you can be, so that the end result will be as pleasing as it can be (of course, you might not know exactly what you what, but...)
Here are some ideas of what you might want to achieve:

A small quiet server to stream media to individual machines (laptops, other PCs, TV/media recievers).
A work machine to edit photos, videos and audio content.
A Home Theatre PC, with a large display and high quality sound.
A TV-connected machine, using an LCD HD Ready TV as the primary display.
Some / all of the above, plus the ability to play games.

Just some ideas to consider, hope that helps.

[Zadock]

Just one thought that i should have asked at the start, but the above phrase is quite ambiguous actually. It's worth being as specific about your needs as you can be, so that the end result will be as pleasing as it can be (of course, you might not know exactly what you what, but...)
Here are some ideas of what you might want to achieve:

A small quiet server to stream media to individual machines (laptops, other PCs, TV/media recievers).
A work machine to edit photos, videos and audio content.
A Home Theatre PC, with a large display and high quality sound.
A TV-connected machine, using an LCD HD Ready TV as the primary display.
Some / all of the above, plus the ability to play games.

Just some ideas to consider, hope that helps.

Well... I'm in the process of looking for a new flat at the mo and the intention is to have this machine in my front room hooked upto a fairly large (though not excessive) HD ready TV. I have a nice seperate hifi system which I would likely want to hook it up to. General use would be DVDs (I'd get a blue-ray DVD drive for it somewhere down the line) and recording TV.

Other potential uses:

- bit of internet use, browsing etc
- Gaming sever: I play some fairly old games with some mates over the net (sometimes through hamachi) so I may occasionally run e.g. far cry dedicated server on there.
- Gaming: nothing hardcore but I may want to stick PES or fifa on there.

So I think flexibility is something I'll go for.