use for old parts
 

i got some old spare parts collecting dust, and i thought i might put them to use. So heres what i got:

pentium d 805
asus p5qpl-am
hdd

sold my extra ram so i'll have to pick up some on the cheap

but what should i do about hd playback?, the 805 cant do it on its own.
Will a cheap 4350/5450 be able to do it?
Also im not sure about an os, theres some linux distros i've come across on the net or is windows a better option?

Either of those two should handle HD playback in windows without a problem. Linux though, not so sure. I've been looking at a few linux options for my own HTPC and think that none of them support HD playback via AMD graphics cards. You might want to get a low-end Nvidia card if you really want to go the linux route.

does coreavc work in linux? awesome decoder, even better with a cheap nvidia cuda card

XBMC under Linux with a supported Nvidia based video card will handle HD playback easily due to it's implementation of hardware acceleration.

Under windows, any low end ATI or Nvidia card (GT220?) will do.

As a general purpose pc, your spare parts would do very well under Linux btw (2gb ram would be nice).