Hi everyone, I've been researching most of the posts, and would like any last minute advice on 3 problems that I have - before buying my MCE gear in a few days.
1) SilverStone SST-LC14 and Motherboards
From what I understand the SilverStone cases are very good but I need to be careful with what motherboard I use. Ideally I want to use something with SPDIF for my Yamaha RX-V550 Amp, so I've chosen the ABIT AS8-V board. Anyone had any issues?
2) Video Cards and noise
I see a few good recommendations for the "6200 Series", it appears to be an older card - will the Xpertvision 6600GT be ok, and do I need 256 Meg Video Ram. I am worried about heat, and noisy cooling fans
3) CPU and noise
I'm really really worried about noise and heat, I'd like to use a "Thermaltake Sonic Tower Fanless heatpipe" but can't find any good information on them. Should I play it safe with the "Zalman CNPS7700-CU". I've seen a heap of good reviews for Zalman stuff.
Any advice is welcomed, many thanks.
Here are the components I'm thinking of buying:
1x SilverStone SST-LC14 black Aluminum-fronted Desktop case
1x Pioneer DVR-110D Black dual-layer, 16x DVD±R
1x ABIT AS8-V board i865PE for LGA775 P4 & DDR RAM, 10/100 LAN, 6Ch AC97 audio
1x P4 541 3.2 GHz (800MHz FSB 1mb cache EMT64) Processor LGA775 w/Intel Cooler
1x Zalman NB47J Northbridge Heatsink, fanless, uses bolt-holes to attach
1x Xpertvision 6600GT 256MB AGP Video card, VGA & DVI, video out
1x Silverstone Zero-Noise 300W ATX Power Supply, no fans, aluminum case
1x Western Digital 3200JD 320Gb Serial ATA drive, 8mb cache, 7200RPM
1x Microsoft IR Media Centre Keyboard
1x Microsoft Windows Media Centre IR remote control w/USB dongle
1x Microsoft Windows MCE2005 Media Centre Edition, naturally
2x PC-3200 512MB GeIL 184-pin DDR SDRAM CAS 2.5 w/blue heatspreader
2x Fusion HDTV Plus Digital TV Tuner PCI card,