[plug] Motherboard/cpu suggestions

[Brad Campbell]

G'day all,

I'm finally tired of the noise my pc generates so I'm moving it to the back room as a server.
I now want to build a pc to use as an entertainment system front end.

It has to have the balls to run xine with the tvtime deinterlacer running flat chat in full frame 
zoom mode while decoding dvd's so I guess I need something > 2GHz (I'm currently using an Athlon XP 
2800+).
I'd prefer gigabit ethernet, USB2 and Firewire.

I'm currently trawling through the various hardware sites but I thought I'd post this here as 
someone might have such a thing and pipe up with "Oh yeah and it all works flawlessly with linux" 
unlike the nForce stuff.

I have looked at the Asus A7V600-X and all of the Shuttle XPC offerings, but the Asus lacks firewire 
and the Shuttle's lack Gigabit ethernet. (Plus I could use a couple of PCI slots and they have only 
one).

I'm reasonably biased against Intel processors but if I have to sell my soul to get what I want I 
guess I can ride the slippery slope for a while. I do know the Intel processors run cooler when not 
loaded but are about par with heat disippation under load. I'm not looking to overclock or anything 
else, just play dvd's from hard disk, mp3's and some mpegs I grabbed of the satellite, plus a bit of 
day to day word processing and web browsing. The movie playing and de-interlacing is the most 
important bit though.

Quiet is what I'm after. I can't really find anyone with a Shuttle XPC to give me a noise comparison.

Unless a better Dual head graphics solution comes up (LCD and Projector) then I'm going to stick 
with my Matrox G450 so integrated graphics is not a requirement.

Regards,
Brad