Hi folks,
Today i found out about this machine, thats one heck of a deal they're throwing out there!
What im wondering is what people think should be bought to improve its function as a solid XBMC player, capable of running Aeon skins in a responsive manner too.
1) Is 1gb RAM sufficient, or is this something i should improve upon? Also is it 1x 1gb stick, or 2x 512gb sticks??
2) Would there be a disadvantage in disregarding the addition of a nVidia 210 gfx card and going with a PCI-E sound card instead to feed sound to the tv?
I have a E6500 (2.13gb DC) running Aeon Nox just fine, o/b gfx, all through cpu processing power. Does the AMD 1.3ghz DC mobile chip need a dedicated GPU to help push pixels for something like Nox or even MQ2? I just dont want to suck power and generate heat, all to use a HDMI socket to get video & audio, IF a soundcard and o/b vga would work fine. If i'll be fighting an uphill battle, i'll throw whatever it needs in there, but if were fine, i dont need the heat & power consumption a gpu will undoubtably add.
It'd be nice to go the green route, costs are almost identical (£30ish each) but not at the expense of all the bells & whistles i want.
I dont need 1080p viewing, sadly. Only 720p tvs in the house, and if i upgrade those a £30 gpu wont be a problem.
I'll be throwing in 4x 2Tb F4's, with WHS (maybe WHS2011) and using it as a backup station, media hub, and a player. No more, no less, everything else can be done on other machines around the house, so my main focus is on getting XBMC happy and it looking sexy
So, ram upgrade, and GPU vs SB card. Any thoughts?