A new PC

[Waldo Pepper]

My old PC (P4 with a 935 chipset) is past it. The fans needed to cool it are too noisy.

I am after a small, fast(ish) PC to replace it.

I am not into gaming, but would like something with very low power consumption with a basic DVD drive and the option to add a big HD into a slot. Eventually when prices come down, replace the C: drive with a SSD.

Something I could run a basic media server from with a few USB ports and wired Ethernet without noisy fans.

Has anyone any ideas for such a PC and a good SSD as I believe there are some real cack ones out there?

Some were reviewed about a year ago on the Gadget Show, but I can find little reference to it.
TIA.

do you want to go down the miniITX form factor route? if so the nvidia ion chipsets allow for HD content to be shown and use the Atom cpu and run on less than 100 watts?

If you do not want to go down that route then something like the AM3 x2 cpu running 65 watts on a fairly decent Asus mobo with AMD chipset and onboard gfx with 4 gig of ram.

Then do you want a media case a cube or what?

As for SSD none of the budget ones are worth looking at and you still need to spend 200 quid for a decent one

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by zing

do you want to go down the miniITX form factor route? if so the nvidia ion chipsets allow for HD content to be shown and use the Atom cpu and run on less than 100 watts?

Was about to post this.

If it's just a media pc then the Atom based ones are the way forward. The Asus EEE box or Acer Aspire Revos are both all kinds of awesome for playing media with very low power and noise.