Buildiing a new PC

[wjhall99]

Hello! So I'm considering cutting the cable and just using my pc to watch Hulu, ESPN3, etc. But I need to replace a 9 yr old Dell first. After doing a little research, I'm considering building my own because it seems as if I can build a higher quality, expandable pc for about the same price of buying one. Essentially I want it to be a multimedia pc (internet/email, music, photos, some streaming as mentioned above, but NO games).

So I'm thinking of going with one of the 2 budget builds and I guess my initial questions are:

1) do I need a video card?
2) the video card listed on the budget build appears to be deactivated on newegg, so what now if I do need a video card?
3) is there anything else I should consider (like is building one reasonable for my needs as opposed to just buying one)?

Thanks for any help,
Wes

[RickyTick]

Maybe a variation of the Budget Build would be best. Something like this.


Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042) Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

PSU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005) CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W

Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130558) MSI 870A-G55 AM3 AMD 770 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD

CPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808) AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz

Ram (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231425) G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)

GPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162067) Galaxy 43GGS8HX3SPZ GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 1GB

Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

Optical Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289) LITE-ON Black 24X DVD Burner

TV Tuner (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116036) Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 Media Center Kit Dual TV Tuner

Sound Card (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7040891&CatId=2769) Asus Xonar DG Sound Card - 5.1 Channels, PCI, 24 Bit

Operating System (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116992) Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit 1-Pack - OEM

Total is about $825

[mcucs]

i to use my pc as an htpc.
i however use the onboard sound from my motherboard (ga-x58a-ud3r)
this allows me to run only 1 cable (hdmi) from my computer to my T.V. as they are in different room.

perhaps this wont be a problem for you if your tv and pc are close together, or perhaps you could get both the onboard sound and sound cards to work together, i dont know.

[wjhall99]

Thanks for the input from you both. There's a couple items there that I hadn't thought about. I may try it originally without the sound card and see how goes and then install at a later point if I need it.

[RickyTick]

That's probably not a bad idea. Most motherboards have very good onboard sound.

[wjhall99]

So if this hard drive didn't come with a diagnostics disk, is it safe to go ahead with the Windows install and assume it works for now? Or is there some other way to test it?