The initial XBMC machine I setup was the one I use more frequently as it’s in our primary living room. I found 2 Dell Optiplex 745s on Craigslist for only $40 for the pair. They have Core 2 Duo processors and 2 GB of RAM in them. I then went and purchased 2 AMD HD6450 HDMI low-profile video cards to install in them. I got XBMC 12.2 loaded up on the living room PC and haven’t really had any issues with it. I will document my installation process in a separate post. The TV for upstairs was a Black Friday special 2 years ago at Target and is just a Westinghouse 46″ LCD with 60Hz refresh but is 1080p. For no more than the $270 I paid for it, it’s actually been a pretty decent TV.
I tried using a Raspberry Pi recently in place of my computer but it just wasn’t the same. Technically it worked but it was significantly slower. It maybe have been due to the type of SD card I was using but, overall, was just too slow for me. As is, however, it is working fantastic.