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Viking i will report back, im pretty commited now to going for the newer hardware.  As far as the 9500, i was just thinking about going for the slightly higher spec card, but having looked more closely at the setup i think heat is going to be my enemy so im going to roll with the suggested processor and the onboard graphics.  I will report back as to how the system performs when i get it together and running.

Thanks for the replies guys.  All seems to be taking me away from the msi to move towards a more up to date setup!  Interesting info from a bluray point of view, it does  seem an easy way to keep the cost of the system down.  As far as processors go, when the hell did people stop giving the clock speed against the product?  All these daft amd names for processors give you no idea (as far as I can work out!) on clock speed! (Rant over!)

My other option is to spec/build something myself.  I have been playing around with specs roughly like the following, but would be grateful of some feedback;

Components
Processor
1 x ATHLON 64 X2 5200+ 2.7GHZ PIB SKT AM2 2X512KB F...    £39.21            Fast enough?
Motherboard
1 x M3N78 PRO AM2+ GF8300 ATX VGA+SND+GLN+1394+U2 H...    £51.04            Wiki says its compatible
Memory
1 x Kingston HyperX 2GB PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2-SDRAM ...    £17.97            Fast enough?
Graphics Card
1 x EN9500GT/DI/512MD3 512MB DDR3 PCI-E DVI-I HDMI ...    £43.58            Any idea if this card will work?
Optical Drive
1 x Pioneer 5x BluRay DVDRW Combo    £57.96
Hard Disk
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 32MB Cach...    £62.24

Case wise im thinking if i go this route myself i will go for a silverstone LC20 with some sort of 520W powersupply.  I guess what im asking is am i better to go for the MSI or this self spec'd machine as the cost will be pretty similar

Thanks for the quick reply guys.  I am not sure what you are classing as a good price, most of the barebones MSI Live boxes i can find are around the £260 price, which doesnt seem to bad albeit a barebones setup.  As far as adding the extra NIC can i keep a PCI slot free by using a wifi USB dongle?  I am very keen to get a twin tuner Digital TV PCI card in my setup.

Thanks for the advise on the 7300GT, how is that card under MCE? 

Once again thanks for the advice;

Andy

I have been fully sold on MCE by the video but really feel that a hybrid will best meet my needs.  I have been through the Wiki over the past few weeks and apart from some old hardware am pretty impressed with how far the project has come!  The question I have is if you were setting up a hybrid system would you still spend the cash on the slightly older MSI Media Live or look at a rebuild with newer hardware?

Thanks for any help!