Thanks, Arbutus, for pointing that out! But you made me re-think, and I decided I didn't like the shoe-box shape of that Apex MI-008 case -- I would prefer something slimmer. Anyway, I've split my list into two now -- one for mini-ITX and one for micro-ATX: mATX * $61.99: IN WIN BL631.300TBL Black S...

Well, from all the above recommendations, I'm thinking of the following: HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.C HDS721010CLA332 (0F10383) 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Nexus PWM Series D12SL-12PWM 120mm Case Fan APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 250W Power Supply MSI H61M-E33 (B3) LGA 1155 In...

Thanks for the suggestion. I haven't yet watched your videos, so you may have answered this, but what do you think of that included p/s? (The reviews on newegg seem to think it's not worth keeping.)

Ah, never mind. After reading about the driver differences in the Linux world, that just cinches the deal -- it seems it's Intel for me for sure. Again, thanks for your help!

-joel

Thanks you all for your replies. I do remember reading ces's comments in that other thread, and I was kinda leaning towards the cheapest-sandy-bridge path, but wanted to give someone a chance to convince me otherwise, since it is still $80 more (lowest I can get on newegg -- I don't have a microcent...

We've been using my wife's laptop (Acer Aspire 5610-4537, Core Duo T2250, 1.73GHz, running horrible, horrible Vista) to play back content on our TV (Vizio 42" 1080p) for sometime now, but it runs very hot. We have to pretty much shutdown everything running, and put it on top of a big, slow laptop co...