El Cheapo HTPC

[TimTheEnchanter]

Ok, will take some as soon as possible, but it may take some time, i've got work + summer class and it's keeping me away from home from 7h00am to 10h30pm.

[biff]

Originally Posted by feerof

pics please =) i have a friend that wants an HTPC but i don't know where to start

Kind of depends on what he wants to do with it. Mine is primarily for media playback, music and BDs and really you don't need much at all. Min has a E3110 (same as a e8400) and playing BDs the cpu usage is in the single digits so I'm sure a much lesser cpu would work just as well. I have a 4670 which offloads alot from the cpu. AFAIK even a lowly 3450 will do the same and TBH I don't know if I'm getting any benefit from having a card better than that. For audio you can just output digital from the onboard sound and get a good used receiver for probably less then a 'good' sound card that will do the decoding. Using 5.1 over s/pdif or digital coax is going to be compressed but it's really not that bad. I could be wrong here but I think by the time you're realizing the limitations of the compressed 5.1 you've got some pretty good speakers and associated audio equipment that going beyond a super-budget HTPC is still going to be pretty cheap in comparison.

Just my 2 cents.