Dell Optiplex 360 Question

[The Cobra]

A company that a friend of mine works for is getting rid of some Dell Optiplex 360's. They are running a Pentium Dual Core running at 2.53GHz with an Intel Graphics chipset and 1GB of RAM and Windows XP.

I was thinking that this would be a good machine for an HTPC. I have a spare 1.5TB drive that I picked up a few months back that I could throw on there for storage and maybe update the graphics card since it has a PCIe 16x slot. I would also max out the memory at 4GB. Maybe a Blu-Ray as well.

So my question is: Am I crazy if I take this deal? It would cost $175 for the machine. I was thinking for a video card along the lines of either an ATI 5450 or an Nvidia low profile card of equal power. Something to where I could play DVD's or Blu-Ray's that would lift the video off the processor. The only other thing to consider is the OS. Either go the Windows 7 route or the Ubuntu Linux route. I know that windows 7 home premium would run good on that machine. I also like the linux flavor out there as well. Seems as though there are some good open source programs that do HTPC proud.

Any opinions? Just feeling around. I have to let him know by Friday.

Thx!!

EDIT: I forgot that Blu-ray wont run under Linux yet. So I will keep that in mind with my decision.

 

[gwarren007]

You know with the additional parts, it might cost the same as building one from scratch.

 

[The Cobra]

I already have all the parts except the ATI 5450.

 

[engiNURD]

I already have all the parts except the ATI 5450.

Then go for it! Can you get me one, too?