I kind of know what I want to build but I just want a little feedback from others before I start. Alright, I am building a media server to put music, family videos, pictures and maybe a few other things so that I can stream them anywhere in the house, well anywhere there is a TV. I already have the hard drive I want to get but was looking into CPU and the amount of RAM and what not. I really want to go with an AMD but I think it really boils down to which would perform better. I also was thinking of going with 1 gig of RAM since this is only a server not a PC that everyone will be using. Another question is, would a simple fan setup do or should I consider liquid cooling? Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
I have done exactly this with extra parts lying around. It's a pretty weak machine; AMD Sempron 2200+ and 512MB of PC133 with a bunch of hard drives packed into it. It is connected to an LCD TV and I commonly use it to play videos. I have an FX 5700 Ultra installed in the AGP slot and it does the job nicely. My advice: You don't need to spend very much for this kind of machine. 1GB of RAM will be fine. And you don't need all the "features" and "visual enhancements" of Vista, either. Some of the parts you'll want to choose based on placement / frequency of use. If you plan to leave it on all the time and it will be in an area commonly used by people, you'll want to choose parts / cooling solution to make it silent. If it's not ultra-powerful, that will be relatively easy.
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