Hi all, I want to make a low-power Desktop PC (which will be running Linux).

I'm not really sure what to look for though, so can someone suggest some components? It doesn't need to do anything too fancy, but a half-decent CPU & GPU is a must (for stuff like high-res iPlayer etc).

Budget is £400(ish).

Some 'green' parts?

ATI 5xxx series low power graphics for £40 (HDMI output, etc)
WD 1TB 'green' hard drive - 40% less power

I wonder actually if a cheap Core i3 would be good with its integrated graphics?

I'd look at onboard Intel HD4500 graphics. The one in my Toshiba can play full HD video (H.264) without dropping frames. Intel also, generally, have better open source support for their hardware than ATi or nVidia...

I'd look for a laptop technology based desktop, if you really want low power - or the VIA line, not sure on their capability for streaming HD content though.

The revo?
Well under budget & can play HD

I have one under the TV.

£150 inc. vat and it plays 720p with under 10% CPU utilisation. iPlayer works fine (I just watched Doctor Who on it). The hyperthreading is surprisingly effective and it feels really snappy. It has an eSATA port and 6 USB. All in all, I couldn't be happier with it.

I'm running XP. I don't know what the Linux support is like, but it's pretty standard hardware.

Apparently it'll run Linux just fine. However, my concern is that HD iPlayer or multiple instances of Flash (ads etc) are going to kill the poor little Atom.

Unfortunately you may be right. Flash seems to run very badly under Linux.

Can linux render flash via cuda like you can in windows?

Apparently it depends if the creators of the flash item have coded it that way or not - it's up to the source of the video whether hardware acceleration is used or not. Otherwise it's just CPU intensive and I'm not sure how an Atom is going to cope with that - even a dual-core model like the N330.

For £200 I'm willing to give it a bash though, I can always return it under the DSRs.

My little atom board with a hyper-threaded dual core 330 is quite nippy. It even runs small business server fine

What about a Mac Mini!? (pre-owned of course, they start at £500..)

Yeah I thought about the Mini, but like you say it's £500. For less than half that I'm getting a low-power PC that I can chuck Ubuntu 10.04 on.