Building A Home Theatre Desktop?

[Hinzy]

Hi guys, I'm looking to build a small desktop PC only for playing HD movies and streaming HD videos via HDMI. What are some good specs? Cheers

 

[Wolfshadw]

For just playing HD movies and streaming HD Videos, I'd probably look towards something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A4-5300 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($49.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard ($81.97 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($117.98 @ NCIX US)
Case: Silverstone ML03B HTPC Case ($64.40 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHES212-08 Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($82.28 @ TigerDirect)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $556.57
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-01-15 05:44 EST-0500)

You may get more responses, however, over in the Hardware/Systems forum. Either ask a moderator to move this thread over to that forum, or start a new thread over there and use the How to ask for New Build Advice guidelines.

-Wolf sends

 

[Hinzy]

I was thinking of having a 1TB 7200RPM SATA HDD and a 64GB SSD

 

[Wolfshadw]

If it's within budget, that's fine.

-Wolf sends

 

[thor220]

Why not save $90 a get a linux distro for the HTPC.

XBMC works with linux and there are many distros just for HTPCs.