Super budget HD playback PC

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Saturday 20.12.2025 / 04:16

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Super budget HD playback PC

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mardon

Newbie

11. July 2008 @ 08:40

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I?m trying to build a new PC for my friend who is on a very very tight budget. The main use of the PC is to be hooked up to his 52? 1080i/720p HD TV for Bluray/HD-DVD playback as well as 720p .mkv?s
I?ll be cannibalising his old PC for its:

> Case
> DVD drive
> 200gb HDD (probably IDE)
> 2.5gb of Ram. I?m unsure if its DDR or DDR2.

It was an old PC so the Motherboard and the PSU unit are useless. I want to add the following

> CPU E2160 with an aftermarket cooler to OC from 1.8Ghz to 2.2Ghz or possibly 2.5Ghz

Or a Pentium 4 3.1ghz OC?d to 3.5 ? 3.7ghz Depends on what we can scrounge for free )

> Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 Rev2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard
> Dabs Value 400W PSU Gold 12cm
> LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive ? Retail
> Radion HD3400 or 3600 depending on what I can source (They have onboard Bluray playback)

The guy only has £150 ish to spend so this is really the best I can do. Do you think this spec will be adequate for his needs? Running on Vista 32bit Home Premium?

[ + quote]

sammorris

AfterDawn Addict

4 product reviews

12. July 2008 @ 08:37

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Motherboard is cheap and low quality, PSU is a deathtrap, case may not be sufficiently cooled for a new processor, old RAM may not be compatible (needs to be DDR2).
Vista should be avoided for lower performance PCs, it runs too badly.

I suggest using a Gigabyte P31-S3G Board with a Corsair VX 450W - these two will cost at least £80 between them, but are essential to avoid BIG problems (cheap PSUs for instance often catch fire, not something you want).

[ + quote]

Afterdawn Addict // Silent PC enthusiast // PC Build advisor // LANGamer Alias:Ratmanscoop
PC Specs page -- http://my.afterdawn.com/sammorris/blog_entry.cfm/11247
updated 10-Dec-13

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