Thinking about building a new PC - but!
 

But I want it to do several things - I'm even considering building 2!

I want it to:-

Play Blu Rays through my home cinema - it must be as good if not better than my PS3.
Play music through my home cinema
Play DVDs through my home cinema
Record onto DVDs from Sky (within copyright laws)
Play games as well as my PS3

The home cinema is TrueHD capable.

So essentially I could do away with my PS3 and my DVD recorder because the PC does it all.

The reason for considering two machines is that for the media the machine itself would not need to be too cutting edge. For it to play games it needs beefy graphics and CPU and not cluttered with all manner of media related software slowing it down.

My current PC isn't exactly a slouch but could do with a few tweaks and a better means to hook up to my home cinema (at the moment its 3.5 to RCA)

I'm no expert but a games rig will be relatively noisy and you want a media Pc to be as quiet as possible. for that reason you may well be better off with 2 or at least being able to kill fans to a min in one if you combine it all. I'm sure you could set up profiles to do that.

The graphics card will be the only fan likely to get to max speed. The CPU will be watercooled and the case fans I have a controller for them.

My PC is actually quieter than the SkyHD box. The loudest thing is my PS3.

You know far far far more than I........ [dragons den]I'm out! :D

You want to play BluRays through your home cinema?

is this pc going to be sat by your TV or are you streaming?

Its by the TV. I've discovered if I get one of the new ATI cards - which was on the build list anyway it has HDMI output and can decode TrueHD.

I just thought it might be a means to trim down all this entertainment equipment into one machine. I mostly play FPS games which I prefer on the PC so it wouldn't be a big issue to lose the games aspect of the PS3 but I need good bluray playback.

I've considered have a Windows Home Server in the loft and put all DVDs, bluray and music on it and have streaming machines in the bedrooms.