New Media center

[jtisgeek]

Thinking of replacing my old media center . Looking at running windows 7 media center right now.

The question that I can't seem to make up my mind about is wether to go fast dual core or slower quad core maybe even triple core.
Keep in mind am probably thinking 100 dollars max so staying in budget. Overclocking is a option on both but not too much for power/ heat issues with being in my tv stand type setup and idea's?

Stuff am going to reuse probably
8400gs 512 video card
2gb ddr2 800 will probably upgrade later but not right now.
2 500 gig wd in raid 0 for fast recording storage.
Normal dvd/burner will upgrade to blue ray in the future.


Motherboard needs to be micro atx am thinking about the 8200 nvidia boards so i could use the hybrid sli options.

 

[Outlander_04]

core 2 duo

and e7400 or similar . Powerful but very low power consumption so less fans and less noise

 

[batuchka]

+1 on your Hybrid SLI idea and something like this? Remove w/e hardware u intend to reuse ^^

 

[jtisgeek]

+1 on your Hybrid SLI idea and something like this? Remove w/e hardware u intend to reuse ^^
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q205/batuchka/4xxaf.jpg

Not bad was really thinking of using the 720 i know it overclocks farly good but it was also on the high range for the money i wanted to spend. Which would overclock better e5300 core or the 720 even being triple core would the extra 50 dollars make it worth it.

Alos is it worth the 10 dollars and extra heat i have read able to use the 8300 board over say a 8200 nvida.

 

[batuchka]

Well the real owners when comparing 8200 and 8300 boards the latter group seems to be happier hinting that it is a more quality/well built product Most HTPCs/media center rigs i've do up for peeps have there chips undervolted rather than OCed so a P2X3 710 would give you pretty awesome processing power already out of the box