Cheap front end questions

[trunkmonkey]

My employer is upgrading systems soon, and I offered to take a few of their Dell Optiplex GX620's (P4 3.0/80GB/2GB) to use as XBMC/cmyth frontends. I plan on purchasing some low profile video cards (either Geforce 210 or AMD 5420) so I can watch HDTV. I know these are rather power hungry machines by today's standards, but would they work well for frontends? Any tips on powersaving short of pulling the plug on the machine(s)?

[rwagner]

If you get a remote that supports wakeup, dropping them to standby will cut power consumption down to just a few watts. A few watts is good for a few dollars per year. At least in my opinion, it's worth a few dollars per year for (nearly) instant on.

[trunkmonkey]

That works for me. I'm sure I can cobble up something that'll work. I may be able to find such a beast on eBay that'll work that way. Thanks for the help.

EDIT: I ended up grabbing a couple of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/121273498525?ss ... 1497.l2649 They're cheap enough and come with the IR receiver. Next order of business is a couple of cheap video cards.

[meadrocks]

How well did the remotes work?