Ok so I am tossing the htpc idea around....

[Cowinacape]

We have a couple of new systems coming in (this week I hope ) and we'll have one older system that will be being replaced...

Asus something or another mobo (it's the misses machine and for teh life of me I can't remember what we put in there )

AMD Athon 2.41 Ghz CPU
Gig of ram
Nvidia 7800 GTX
Creative SB Auidigy

Assorted drives

Strong enough to build a htpc around do you think? I could see changing out the video to something more updated, that would allow 1080 (plan on getting a new tv this Christmas) as well, would like to be able to use it as a PVR and toss the VHS, and swap out the dvd rom for a BlueRay/DVD combo drive.

Would like to house it in a smaller case as well, something a little more compact than the Tusanmi Dream it is in now.

Enough here to build around?

[Squeetard]

I built my HTPC for under $400.

asus m2n - hdmi
Athlon 3800+
1 gb kingston ram
320gb seagate
sata dvdrw
Antec minuet case.

Plays 1080p rips (.mkv) no problems.

[Phobia]

your video card should play 1080p. However i would suggest getting NCIX.com - Buy ASUS Radeon HD 3450 600MHZ 512MB 800MHZ DDR2 PCI-E DVI-I HDCP VGA HDTV Out Fanless Video Card - EAH3450/HTP/512M In Canada. . I have it and it plays my movies and everything fine. Plus if you use an HDMI cable it will play audio as well. So you will not need a reciever for the audio. It comes right out of the tv.

[Cowinacape]

Thanks for the replies peeps, greatly appreciated!

[jdrom17]

I built my HTPC from my old socket 939 gear, it consists of:
AMD Athlon X2 4400+ (2.4GHz)
NVIDIA Geforce 7900GTO
2x1GB OCZ Platinum DDR-400
Old junky 80GB hard drive
Vista Ultimate 32bit

However I only use mine for playing back media, surfing the web and sometimes UT3. No PVR/Recording. Runs 1080p video flawlessly.

I don't think the Audigy has optical/coaxial digital outputs so if you have a 5.1 home-theater setup, then you'd be better off using just onboard sound (assuming it has digital outputs).