Ok, I want to build a new "hybrid" machine to do 3 jobs:

1) Media Center (will be hooked up to TV via HDMI and Audio to Received via SP-DIF)
2) File Server
3) VMWare Host (for 2 Win XP Guests)

Now the thing is that I am trying to build a low electricity foot print machine, whilst making sure that the hardware is capable (more than capable) of doing what I need.

The real question I have is related to HD MKV playback.
Will an Athlon X2 cope or should I go Core2Duo ?
Should I go with nVidia, AMD or integrated gfx ?

I did have a machine all speced out but then someone threw the X2 into the mix (at 45W and cheaper than the C2D).

Opinions ?

Very PC Broadleaf

Problem is, no HDMI, but DVI should do it.

One of the old Tekheads/Tekmonkeys lads works there.

One of those atom dual core jobbies will do what you need as well.

Do you think an Atom would cope with running VMWare ?

That Broadleaf thing looks interesting

Get a CPU that will do hardware virtualisation tbh.

low power is fine but bang for watt the c2ds are pretty good.

For low power, and virtualisation youre most likely looking at a 45nm Athlon or Phenom.   The Atom isnt really much cop once you start loading heavy things in to it.  Also with the AMD you get a rather nice chipset in the form of the 780G-series with HDMI/DVI/VGA all packaged together.  

Youll find that a fair few of the Intel CPus dont have hardware virtualisation built in, youll need to check for that.  One dude I work with was upset that his overclocked 8200 wont support the free Windows XP with windows 7 because it doesnt have it, and thats not an old chip.  

Ahh yeah I remember running into that problem when the BETA came out. Id forgotten all about it, nice one for reminding me

I think Im back to Intel now. Got my eye on either of these:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz

or

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz 1333FSB

The Quad is £10 cheaper but obviously slower cores. I am going to check the virtualisation support on them now


edit:

The Quad Core doesnt support Intel® Virtualization Technology so thats out then