Proximon said:
The only SLI motherboard I'll recommend is Intel, and I suspect that is why you are not getting any replies. Nvidia chipset boards are not very popular here.
You want a Home Theater PC... These have certain qualities in general.
1. Low profile case that fits in with home theater type equipment.
2. Quiet.
3. Cool running - not overclocked usually not two video cards.
I think you just want a gaming PC to hook up to your TV. How will you use the optical drive if it's laying on it's side?
Quote:
(gave up because it wouldn't fit 2*hr-03gt into the tower)
I have no idea what you are saying there.
So I guess you are asking for a motherboard recommendation at the heart of all this. Here is one that has the right price and features:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
I don't recommend any nVidia chipset boards, but I know you have to have one, so there ya go.
Thanks for your comment!
I'm not really planning on sli-ing with the 2 8800gt's. I just happen to have them lying around so I'll just use them until I figure out what I really want. Speaking of which, I'm probably going to go do 2-way crossfire (with 4890s from newegg and that delicious 10% coupon), so I guess I'll toss that into the list of arbitrary requirements.
The cm360 case can be (and should be) positioned like a vcr player since the cd rom and 3.5 ext bay is sideways when you stand it up like a desktop tower. I really don't understand why they market it as a mid-atx and not a TRANSFORMING CASE FROM THE FUTURE.
Anyways... you are totally right on the 3 important requirements of an htpc. I'm not planning on o/cing this at all, as the plasma screen is burning everything in a 5 feet radius already. My living room is literally hot enough to cook hot pockets if I leave them on a metallic plate. I'm probably going to go with some passive heatsinks and run an assload of airflow through the case.
About the thermalright hr-03gt's; those are 2 of the sharpest, knifelike gpu coolers in existence. I did an intel/thermalright/antec fanboy build (much how this build is going to be an amd thing) and used an 120extreme and 2 hr-03gt's. I gouged myself with those pointy metal blades more than I gouged the guy I was building it for. Remember that one crazy picture with a guy and his arm in a meat grinder (go on, google it, I'll wait)... it was like that.
Anyways, here's a recap of the requirements:
-Cpu needs to be from amd. Probably 920/940/955. Or if there is some gamer cpu I'm missing from amd. amd's dual cores suck so hard, I'm tempted just to bail on them and go with an e8400. Btw... I'd like to know if there's any reason to have a Black Edition if I'm not planning to overclock. I haven't done this amd thing in a while, as I'm sure you've noticed.
-mobo needs to support 2x crossfire. Price is pretty irrelevant, but I'm not planning to overclock so any old board that supports phenom II, ddr3, and 2x crossfire should work (ie, 790x). It's so hard to tell if a bump in price is due to the board being actually reliable, or if it has some crazy feature that no other board has, or if the vender is just tryin to rip you off.
-and as for time of purchase... sooner is better. I'll probably impulsively buy the first shiny thing I see.
Any comments appreciated!