[jimbo1960]

As I have no programming experience I needed to find something to while away the hours waiting for the dev’s (bow down) to work their magic on the code.

I wanted to start a thread to discuss building a machine capable of releasing the full potential of TuxMC (or whatever it will be called).
My Idea was to find a case that wouldn’t look out of place nestled between my AV amp and SKY HD satellite decoder and then find the components to fill it.
The Mini-ITX form factor looks favourite for a STB but if you put it in a low profile case you only get the option for a PCI expansion slot (not ideal for a graphics card).
Has anyone come across a motherboard with onboard graphics (and DVI) capable of doing this project justice? Or how about a sexy case?

I am not suggesting anyone goes out and builds a machine before the dev’s give recommendations on a minimum hardware spec but this could be a place to collect information on cases, motherboards, processors, cooling, quietening etc.

To get things started, this site http://mini-itx.com/store/?c=3 has a selection of cases and motherboards.

[dass_uk]

As this is my first post, I'll open with a big thanks to the devs for taking on this huge project. It's looking great already.

As a long time user of VIA mini-itx boards I doubt that they will have the cpu power required to get the most out of the XBMC Linux port. The Mpeg 2 & 4 accelerators seem to be hard to code for and the graphics chipset is underpowered even on the new EX (C7D) boards.

I have seen the Intel GMA X3100 mentioned here on the boards as it has good backing for open source drivers. As the mini-itx format would be ideal for a media centre maybe this system http://www.epiacenter.com/modules.php?na...e&sid=1130 would be a reasonable spec?