Specs

I would ask what kind of case are you going to use for a start and what kind of budget are you going to aim for with this build. I use the one in my sig or specs for my media center hooked to a Sony 46 inch Tv in my Living room. There are many newer faster cpu's on the market and newer motherboards since my build and many different cases to choose, but for my use mine works just fine .

The key is not going to be processor so much as HD speeds - get yourself a minimum of 7200 rpm drives with big loads of Cache. The more RAM you have the better also.

You could quite probably take my system specs, bump the RAM to 8 GB and be happy - and all that could probably be done for under $800 these days...

If you want to spend a little more money, I'd opt for a core i7 CPU, 6-12 GB of RAM (6 ought to do you, but more is better, and 12 GB of DDR3 is not nearly as expensive as you think since you aren't looking to massively OC this rig) and some good, fast HDs - perhaps an SSD for the OS and some nice fast 7200+rpm drives for storage....

A RAID system might not be a bad idea either....

If you plan on storing movies on your Hard Drive, get something like Core i7 920, 2 GB of RAM, a massive Hard Drive, and Windows 7 RC1 when it's out.

If you plan on running these off the DVD, get a Blu-Ray drive, Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB of RAM, a decent Hard Drive, and Windows 7 RC1.

Either way, you'll want something like the ATi Radeon 3850, 500 W PSU, and a functional keyboard and mouse.


EDIT: Although the specs look crappy, they are not. It's just that much more than this stuff could be overkill if you go too far. And expensive.

Build It: A Living-Room Media Center PC - Solutions by PC Magazine Here is a nice example of a build done by PC Mag I believe to give you some ideas. Core i7 920 is the cpu to go with if money is no object. I went for quiet with mine so it is almost silent with nothing on in the room which is something to think about in your build.