I am looking to buy parts to build a complete media centre pc. It will be used exclusively for watching dvd's, video's and digital television.

The main thing i am going for is a silent system without the needless fancy self insistent components. With regards to a case, i'm looking for something as neat and compact and small as possible so i'd appreciate it if anybody could recommend me some.

Is there any need for a core 2 duo cpu for this system? Surely a Intel Dual Core 2.8ghz will suffice for this system?

And also what would be the minimum recommended RAM?