Years ago, I built a mATX desktop which has now essentially become my HTPC.
It has:
Gigabyte geforce 6300igp mobo?
Athlon 64 x2 running at 2.9ghz and ~60w TDP
2 raptor 74gb hard drives in RAID 0
1TB media drive
8800GTS 320MB video card
Plextor short depth dvd burner (hardly ever use)
Antec 550w PSU
I have it connected to my tv with a RGB cable and with 3.5mm to rca cables for audio to my AVR.
As it is, it can play most anything up to 720P and the audio quality is "ok" However, I've been looking to upgrade it some so that it will be able to play 1080P and HD audio codecs without dropping frames all over. During this research I learned that most all the Radeon 5 series cards can do 1080P video and (IIRC) pass HD audio codecs over the hdmi connection. The nVidia 4 series I believe can do the same thing but I prefer the Radeons for this generation. I may be wrong about the HD audio part but I know they can somehow pass audio over HDMI.
I'm looking for a Radeon 5750 to go on sale as it is a bit faster than my 8800gts (5670 is about on par for 3D) for the light gaming I do and it uses ~1/4 the power of my current card.
