Celeron enough to power media pc?

Hey,

I currently have an old dell dimension built around a 2.30 GHz Celeron CPU. I'm planning on getting a whole new system by the end of the summer so I was wondering how i could make the most of my old pc instead of it all going out in the trash. I first thought i could use it as a network storage pc but then it occured to me that i could use it in a media pc, which would be more useful. I had a look around the web and i figured i could make one for less then £500 which seemed quite good value. However i've read somewhere that a media pc would be much happier with a dual core processor. This would bump up the price a bit to much for my liking and i would be much happier if i could just reuse the Celeron.

So does anyone know if a 2.30 GHz celeron will run a media pc or would i be better off buying a dual core processor? I plan on using the media pc for tv viewing and recording, playing back music and the occasional DVD.

u don't need to buy a dual-core for that system, the only upgrade which would be great for a media pc is RAM (at lease 512MB or more) less then 100$ and that sys is good for media

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Originally Posted by JKimbo

So does anyone know if a 2.30 GHz celeron will run a media pc or would i be better off buying a dual core processor? I plan on using the media pc for tv viewing and recording, playing back music and the occasional DVD.

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Naw, doesn't take much CPU power at all for decoding DVD/mpeg4 video.. a Celly 2.3Ghz would be overkill in all honesty. The only thing you need to be concerned about is storage if you're going to be reading a large library of avi files.. 512MB of RAM would be plenty if you went the Windows Media Center route, 256MB would be sufficent on a MythBox.

Hi,

I agree with all the above. I'm currently running a Sempron 2500, with 512MB RAM and a Radeon 9550 as my main comp in the living room (no telly!) - I use it for everything from playing (and encoding) my MP3 collection, DVD's and games. Works a treat, and not yet thought "I wish it would ........".

My main suggestion would be ensure a large hard drive - as soon as you have a MP3 collection, maybe a few movies and a couple of big games, the GB's disappear!

Absolutely. In fact, it's going a little overboard.

The main area Media Centres get a bit hungry is RAM... but the very nature of a Media Centre means you don't have to sit and wait for things to happen, you flick the channel over and let it get on with it. I'd be happy with 512.

A big HDD is compulsory however, especially since you mention TV recording. Uncompressed video is crazy big. 300GB HDDs are a nice price these days if you ask me.

Oh, and you don't need to bother with a flashy GPU either. In fact, onboard graphics may do you fine.

great thanks for all the help! i'll spend the money saved on the cpu on more ram and a bigger hard drive then. carn't wait to have it up and running, i've needed one of these for ages since the video recorder has pretty much packed up! i'll keep you guys posted on how it goes.