HTPC questions Options

[priorax]

Hey guys,

I'm looking at setting up a HTPC and wanted to check by people who know what they are doing about a few specs.

Mostly, could an AMD x2 245, 2gb DDR3 ram with a motherboard with an on-board ATi HD4200 graphics chipset run 1080p? If not, what is the cheapest cpu/graphics card I could add to make it run 1080p?

EDIT: Currently thinking of using of putting on Ubuntu with XMBC if I go with a nVidia graphics card, then multi-task it as a file server and unplug the dodgy NASrun

[priorax]

Thanks for the feedback

I was half-tempted to put in a tuner, but given that we already have a high-def tv and 2 PVRs Dad just wants this box to be able to stream high def content from around the house and work off the Logitech Harmony 800

Current specs I'm looking at

Gigabyte GA-MA74GMT-S2 mATX Motherboard
AMD Athlon II X2 245
Kingston ValueRAM KVR1333D3N9/2G 2GB DDR3
CoolerMaster Elite 341
ASUS Geforce 210 512MB Low Profile

Still tossing up harddrives
And I have my old 650w psu (bit overkill, I know, but if not this, it will probably not be used again)

One of the main reasons I was leaning towards Linux was this thread http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=67350