I last built a new PC about 3 or 4 years ago. At the time, affordable levels were a single-core AMD with not quite enough grunt to fully decode a HD DVB-T signal (Athlon 3200) - it used to peak at 98% decoding ABC-HD. And the video card was helping. Within a year, prices on a dual-core that is more than fast enough (Athon 4200) were below what I paid. This was for my MythTV box. I've idly seen some new CPU prices and the hardware level has jumped again.

Wade.