newbie here with questions

[MOZZ]

ok so moving some old hardware around and upgrading to another case i have a spare
lian li v300 case
biostar T6100 socket 939 mobo
2gb ram
amd x2 4200

i would like to make this into a htpc connected to my hdtv...would the above specs be good enough?
the spare card i have for it is a 7900gs which i do not think its hdcp whatever
so if i just get say a 9600gt to decode would this be a pretty decent setup?
also for audio...it has on board which will just be hooking up to a older reciever should i just throw in a sb live or better sound card?

or should i be connecting the video through HDMI to the htdv or just use DVI and use the sound card to the reciever?


i will be buying an lg hd/blu ray player for this as well

thanks for the inputs.

 

[Mohonri]

If this is purely a HTPC and not used for gaming, I'd suggest you save your money and get a HD3450. The Radeon 3xx0 series cards have all the video playback acceleration without all the heat of a high-end video card. The rest of the hardware you have is just fine.

 

[MOZZ]

oops im sorry i typed in 9600gt

i will be putting in a 8600gt instead

 

[MOZZ]

Also would it be better to just move into a geforce 8200 based board over using the 8600gt?

or would it be good to use a 8600gt on a 8200 based board? I wouldnt mind gaming a little bit.
i take it the GA-M78SM-S2H board seems to be pretty popular out there.

 

[Mohonri]

You'll end up using either the GPU on the add-in card, or using the GPU integrated in the motherboard, but not (typically, ignoring hybrid SLI/Crossfire for now) both. I believe the 8600GT has the video acceleration features as well, and would be much better for gaming than the HD3450. It's a bit more expensive, however.