When setting up a media PC for your living room the amount of noise it generates and power consumption is crucial, myself I know next to nothing about setting up a quiet green PC - but the experts at Silent PC Review certainly do and have written a number of extremely helpful articles and reviews on the subject, also the feedback on the forums is prompt and helpful.
I eventually purchased the following from Umart.
| Component | Product |
| M/B | Asus M2N-VM-DVI F7050 |
| CPU | AMD64 5200 |
| RAM | 2GB Kingston 800Mhz |
| Case | Antec NSK2480 |
| HD1 | WD 500GB Green Power |
| DVD | Pioneer DVR-115DBK |
Reasonably priced. The NSK case was excellent to work with, spacious inside with lots of handy clips etc. The built in PSU was quite good until it failed :( but I replaced it with a Corsair vx450w which was even quieter. Will post pictures when I get around to it uploading them.
Noise was very low - inaudible until everything in the living room was switched off, then you could here a faint noise from the stock CPU fan. Apparently the CPU can be cooled passively with a Ninja Scythe heatsink but they are hard to source in Australia. Not worried for now. You can't hear a thing when anything is playing on the TV - the fridge in the kitchen is louder.
Power consumption is good - 50W at idle, 60W when playing HD. Once I figure out the power control options for idle that should drop even more.
It also looks quite good - like a standard media component, matches well with our existing equipment.
Note:Never bother hooking up the HDD activity LED - its wildly annoying.
