I need a small PC that doesn't suck.

So, I need a PC that will double as a webserver and a media player for my projector.. It needs to be powerful enough to play high-def video (like x264 .mkv hd-rips), but small and quiet enough to sit in a closet and be on all the time (for the webserver)..

I've looked at the fit-pc slim (fit-pc.com), but it won't be powerful enough, sadly.

Any other suggestions?

http://www.dell.com/content/products...=19&l=en&s=dhs

probably overkill for what you need it for, but the $549 model sounds like it'd be right up your alley (just be sure you get 2GB of ram to satisfy vista's requirements, and don't worry about the onboard intel video as it can play back HD x264 stuff just fine... my fucking onboard 6150 can decode 720p without stuttering with coreavc, and the gma950 in my friggin aspire one can also decode it pretty handily [but it needs more ram])

I think I'm basically looking to see if there's anything out there that's weak enough to be fanless, but strong enough to handle x264..
This is probably unrealistic.. If I can't find anything, i'll probably settle for one of these Dells.

actually there's some pretty impressive fanless heatsinks. Look up zalman and fanless heatsinks, also quiet pc

Build your own. Silverstone and Lian Li have fantastic HTPC cases.

eh, don't really feel like going to the trouble of building this one.. I think I'm gonna go with the Shuttle X27..
http://us.shuttle.com/X2700.aspx
It's attractive because of the low power requirement, and it should be able to handle x264 once I up the ram to 2GB.

Thanks for the help, guys. <3

Alright, so I'm not ordering direct from Shuttle, because they want $86 (lol) for shipping..

I'm going to decide on one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856101076
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856167032

The MSI one is out of stock, but should be back in within a few days..

shuttle

if that wind desktop is anything like the wind netbook you'll regret it damn near instantly for streaming x264 and using it as a webserver simultaneously

Well, they're pretty much identical.. same CPU, same onboard video..
the shuttle has an ATA port, and the MSI supports normal-sized optical and hdd's, but other than that, they're the same.

And I wouldn't compare the wind notebook to the wind desktop, even if they have the same CPU.. The notebook is like 2 lb. and has graphics capabilities that fit a netbook..

they both use intel atoms?

wow, I'd be kinda weary on both then... they're decent netbook chips (and presumably decent for a cubicle workstation) but I'd stick with something from the C2D line for your htpc/web server

edit: perhaps it's just notebook syndrome, but my aspire one gets goddamn WARM even with the fan on if I do anything even remotely taxing on the cpu and it's got an atom n270 in it (which is just a single-core processor with hyperthreading to emulate two cores)