G'day ozbargain,
As Christmas time approaches dads really gone for the renos and finally finished his media centre room.
He's come to me and asked for something "media centre style" for Christmas, saying he'd like some technology that's really useful for it, for general DVD and hard drive film watching.
I originally lined up an Apple TV, but dads got no internet connection and none of the movies I've got are in apple friendly format, so It's a pass on that.
I'd really like to make him a very, very budget friendly htpc.
I've managed to salvage a few parts, but I've been out of the PC game for quite few years now, so I'm not sure what the best parts all are for this build. I've looked online and searched some guides, but in order to keep price down I'd really like to reuse most parts I've got. All these were salvaged, I've done my best with their names.
2x Western Digital green 1TB drives
1x PSU 420w thermal master
1x Radeon 3450
1x LG blu-day disc drive
4x Kensington sticks of low profile ram, I'm assuming around 512-1gb each, all matching
1x unknown MSI motherboard with no cables, which still has the CPU attached, not sure what CPU it is, however it's a core 2 quad, with this fan attached (http://www.directron.com/e30307001.html)
I'd love the build to be as quiet as possible, as small as possible and as cheap as possible. Price, then quiet, then small if I had to pick an order of importance.
It'll only be used for XBMC in 1080p, playing DVD/blu-Ray discs whilst outputting to 5.1, ideally. Doesn't need to be top of the line gear, can be second hand gear, it won't be used often and won't do anything other than that, so will probably use the Linux version of XBMC, with some research and if it can play DVDs. If not, he knows how to use windows xp, so that'll do.
I'd appreciate any help, at all! Thanks so much,
Allex
P.S sorry if I've missed something vital, re typed this about 4 times on my iphone as Safari kept crashing.