Motherboard/CPU/RAM Question...

Hello all!

Hoping for a little advice, I'm looking to build a PC for the rents', which will primairly stream media (but also to be used as an office PC).

As such I'm looking for the following from the components,

Lots of SATAII ports
Ideally 1GB lan, but 100Mbps would be fine
Strong enough to run W7, stream media and run the usual office lark and playback 1080p (shouldn't be too hard!)
HDMI/DVI output with HDCP in the event it gets used as a media PC at some point
Not bothered about optical output as I doubt it'd ever be used, but a plus.

If anyone wants to go the whole nine yards, then welcome to spec out a whole machine (case,PSU,mobo,cpu,ram)

Name of the game is cheap, but known makes for reliability - I'm an Asus fanboy too, so extra points scored for an Asus mobo!

Thanks!

Sean

Budget?
How many is 'lots' of SATA ports, are they going to use more than 1 HDD & 1 optical?

As for mobo, I've just bought an Asus M3N78-VM, mATX, AM2+, onboard 8200 with HDMI/DVI out, seems to have HDCP as well so if you don't need too much power gfx wise it should be ok, costs £50ish. Couple with an X3 CPU, DDR2,HDD/Optical of choice it should be a fairly cheap/small but reasonable powerful build.

Budget is 'as cheap as possible' - it'll be built regardless but i don't want to spend a fortune.

Lots is, as many as possible!! 6 (or more if possible - if they make those??)

Will have 3 HDD's in day 1 and an optical drive, more to be added at a later date

Edit;

Arrrg, posted before i finished!!

That mobo looks good, could use the ATA for optical drive to save the SATA ports I guess - will price up a whole system on scan & see what it comes to! thanks

I got:

Mobo
X3 435 (2.9Ghz)
2GB DDR2 PC6400
Case (el cheapo mATX with PSU)
DVDRW

for £186 from ebuyer, seems like you have the HDDs already (more than 3 for a 'parent PC' seriously?!) so just choose a case (loads of Asus mATX ~ £25 on Today Only, & something like a decent PSE (bequiet 350W on Scan ~ £40) so you have it all i for ~ £230 (excluding monitor. peripherals)

Sounds like a winner to me, thanks!!

They rip all their DVD's to watch on their HTPC but that has run out of drive space (and physical drive slots) so I'm going to share the drives on this new office PC to the HTPC :)