I'm looking to build a computer for my living room on the cheap.
This would mainly be used to play movies, youtube, music and be a dedicated emulator.

I have an old Dell computer but the output is only VGA and looks like crap on my HDTV. I tried looking for a graphics card for this but no luck, there is no PCI-e slot for it.

I have my old computer with the following specs:

CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Windsor Dual-Core 2.8GHz Socket AM2 89W ADA5400CZBOX Processor
GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 / nForce 430 ATX AMD Motherboard
XFX PVT84GUDE3 GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-Bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
APEVIA X-Dreamer II ATXB4KLW-BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 420W Power Supply

Would I be able to just get a new graphics card for my old comp and use that? I have another PC with possibly a better mobo but I would have to check that out.
Would like to get this working as cheap as possible since I have so many spare computer parts.

I can always build a new one, but would like to try to at least rig something up.

This post was edited by pimpdawg on May 21 2015 06:25am

Your old computer with the 8600 GTS in it will work fine as long as your TV has a DVI port. If it doesn't have a DVI port, just get something like a GT 720 and replace the 8600 GTS. A GT 720 runs about $40.
Depending on the emulators you're going to be using, you may want a stronger CPU. For example, PCSX2 (PS2 Emu) will run on an Athlon 62, but a lot of the games will be choppy.

That system by itself will play videos on youtube as well as any movie you have fine.

/e

You can build a brand new HTPC for about $250-300 if you need to buy all the parts.

This post was edited by DeXaFiLaH on May 21 2015 02:17pm

My current living room computer is :

Operating System
Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
CPU
Intel Pentium 4 631
Cedar Mill 65nm Technology
RAM
3.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 265MHz (4-4-4-12)
Motherboard
Hewlett-Packard 0A60h (XU1 PROCESSOR) 60 °C
Graphics
DELL P2213 (1680x1050@59Hz)
Intel Q965/Q963 Express Chipset Family (HP)
Storage
74GB Seagate ST3808110AS ATA Device (SATA) 33 °C

And a 240W power supply


This is up and running fine, which computer would be better?
I can try to find an ADD2 gfx card with HDMI or just scrap everything and piece together a HTPC

This post was edited by pimpdawg on May 21 2015 07:46pm

Either PC will run videos and such fine. The only problem you'll run into is running emulators as they are more cpu intense.

OK thank you, I will just run the n64/ps1/snes/nes emulators on this one