Find me a computer

[Robby]

I'm looking to buy a new computer. This is mainly going to be a media centre, plugged into a big TV with a VGA cable, but it will also be used to play some games - command and conquer type stuff.

Last time I knew anything detailed about the components in my computer a PII 400 with a pair of voodoo 2 graphics cards was cutting edge. I am led to believe that this is no longer the case.

Thing I want:
Small case, like a shuttle PC.
Really, really quiet.
1TB hard drive
wifi built in
twin core or better processor
4gigs or more of RAM
No blue lights on the casing. I'm not eleven.

Don't need a screen, and I'll find myself a wireless keyboard and trackball for sofa use. Budget is less than £500, and the cheaper the better.

[Tarmacsurfer]

To throw a slightly different take onto it, I use a refurbed laptop for a media centre. There are even HDMI laptops around now (although given I'm using an older one that came my way broken it's connected via VGA), this has a huge advantage in the fact they're generally very, very quiet and easy to hide away and usually have a very good wireless connection.

I use THIS SETUP to drive it from the sofa, keyboard is small enough to slot underneath and out of sight when unwanted and the remote drove most of my kit until I went for an LCD programmable unit for general use. Can pick them up for much less than retail via Ebay and suchlike, paid £20 for mine as the keyboard was damaged. You also have the advantage with the laptop form factor that if you want to take it elsewhere it's easy to do so.
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I'm immortal. Well, so far.

[Finglonga]

32 or 64 bit? If 32 you will only want a maximum of 4 Gig RAM as it wont use any more.
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Andy Sez....
F.Y.Y.F.F.

[Robby]

Interesting, however the laptop has the issue of being expensive to upgrade, taking smaller hard drives, and generally having inferior graphics cards. I have also realised that I might be flexible on the wireless - this is going to be near my xbox 360, so I might as well plug them both into the router.

32bit for now, seeing as I'm sticking with XP, so 4 gig is all I need.

[JonB]

Regarding your OS choice i'd be tempted to go for Vista purely because you get Media Centre included, i'm pretty sure you can't get XP Media Centre edition off the shelf anymore (presuming you were going down the legit route). That way you can use your Xbox 360 as an extender as well.

I wouldn't worry about the scare stories, it's a mature OS now (upto Service Pack 2). I'm not using it though as I am using Windows 7 on a daily basis now, but it is essentially Vista but with much better performance.
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Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it?s worth.

[Tarmacsurfer]

[Robby]

Trust the geek zone to make things complicated.

Luke, I may take you up on that - how many cores is the processor?

An alternative may just be to get a full size casing, I assume these can still be sufficiently quiet? My cheap acer at home is, just back in the day anthing vaguely quick was noisy.

[UnknownStuntm...]

I've built loads of Shuttles recently, based on the K45 and the X27d. K45 will accept standard intel chips, so if you get a reasonable one with a 4 conductor fan cable, it'll be dead quiet. They'll take a driver, but you'll have to mod the front panel to do so, so be aware of that.
X27, atom based, so maybe games will hammer it a bit much. But they really are silent. You can put more RAM in an X based Shuttle, but the processor is part of the motherboard.
hth.

[Charlie]

Mac mini sounds like it fits the bill...
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Past: Honda x8rs, Honda City fly, Honda Hornet 250, Honda VFR750, Yamaha xt600e.
Current: Honda CBR929RR & Yamaha XT660Z Tenere

[Rob]

[UnknownStuntm...]

[neil.]

If you do want a Mac Mini, robby, PM me as I can get you a 10% discount on one from the Apple Store (working in education).
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CBT February 2008 | A2 June 2008 | Yamaha YBR125 (written off) | Honda CBF125 (current)