Media Box or Garbage?

A friend gave me a working computer without a HDD. I want to use it to hook up to my TV purely for web surfing and video playback as the crappy PS3 browser drives me crazy while my wife is demanding computer time. On top of that, since my switch to xp64 I can't stream to the PS3 at all, so all movie files are limited to 4gb. I rip BDs and prefer a 8-10GB file size for HD playback. I am willing to reduce my rips to 720p in the interest of being able to use this box, if it will make the difference. I might want to do some very light gaming on occasion (like WoW on minimum settings for example) but this is not an important need. Surfing and Media playback is the goal, no multitasking required, heh.

The box is an older compaq model.

Motherboard - MS-7184
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc [...] c=en&cc=us
3200+ AMD Athlon 64 single core
1GB DDR400
300w PSU
Onboard Video only.
Will be installing XP Pro 32

The motherboard only has official support for 4800+ 939 dual cores, though I have found discussions on flashing the bios for support of better 939 socket chips without a definite ceiling being mentioned.

I have found socket 939 4800+ dual cores through E-bay.ca for around $50CAD, so that is a possible path I may take.

I have also seen a good amount of cheap PCI-E video cards that should do the trick, but dont want to spend money where I don't have to. If a dual core would be enough to playback 1080p video, I won't put in a card. If a card will run off the single core well enough and do the work for the video, I won't bother with the processor. This is where I am fairly ignorant.

Thanks in advance for any advice you may be able to offer!

Look at the label on the power supply and tell us how many amps you have on the 12v rails.

Well, this is the PSU:

http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6817174026

12V@19A

It is a compaq SR1734X. Bios has all OC options locked out, so what I get is what I got, heh.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc [...] 18329#N379

I tried many different streaming programs. When I was on XPpro 32 it was Tversity all the way. I switched to XP x64 with this new build and have not been able to get anything to stream successfully. Some interweb sleuthing led me to believe that this is an XP x64 issue, and that streaming works fine on Vista 64 (as you can attest to). I am just gonna wait for Windows 7, anyhow, and skip Vista, especially if this wee budget box will do what I need.

So anything lower than a 4670 should operate without fault? A shop in town is selling 4350s for $32 this week. so I will probably just lowball my needs, since, as I mentioned above, primary function is Media and web surfing.

Thanks for help, and have a great day.