Does a Core 2 Duo laptop is enough for entertainment

Which low end processor will be best for entertainment purpose. I have to recommend my friend a pc. It will be only used for entertainment. That means watching movies, videos and sharing music files. That's it. I need a cpu that can provide a fast output on high resolution. This pc will be connected to a 40" TV set with all videos stored in it. So that will be a direct streaming solution. We have a dual core system on which we tried to hook the tv. But it freezes when we try to play videos at maximum resolution. So we are planing to upgrade the same. We have budget for processor, motherboard and ram. While all other things will be same.

I think Core 2 Duo will be enough. Increase the ram to 4Gb or higher and find a board that has hdmi connectivity option. Then use it like a media pc. It will work fine. As far as only video/audio is concerned Core 2 Duo is good according to me.

For entertainment you need a processor that can work for longer period and on the same hand it must also remain cooler. So according to that requirement Intel Core i3 is the best one. This cpu come with nice processing power and the new architecture of this processor keeps it cooler in extreme usage. It is good in terms of performance also. You can use it for gaming in future if you want. You have to buy a good board with the same. You cannot fit that on your existing motherboard. The processor is amazing. I have a 2nd generation Core i3 laptop at my home which is connected to a 21inch monitor. I use the laptop for streaming videos and it works really well. Compare to this Core 2 Duo heats a lot. So there can be problem with the output. Use atleast 4GB of ram with 512GPU. Dedicated video memory will boost the graphic output.

Even if in your existing pc you add a 1GB graphic card I think that will be enough. The video processing stuff will be taken up by the gpu. You can add more ram to boost the performance. There is no really compulsion of buying a entirely new hardware.