Quick question for everyone. I've been a struggling Mythtv HD user for about a year now. With the Dragon coming out it's so temping to buy that and I still may. But I have some Intel hardware and read this review:

http://www.sharealike.org/HTPC/

and it's promising that in r5a26 it may work out of the box. I have:

GEForce 5200 AGP
Pentium 4 Prescott or Northwood 3.0 giger (I have both can use either)
Micro-atx media case...I think it's call the n-media or sumtin
HD-3000
PVR-250 regular (not-mce)
Cable (Timewarner) and Dish Network Rx'ers
Chaintech av-710
Asus P4P800-VM micro-atx

I'm thinking about getting this regular atx board:
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe

and a new ATX case..maybe a silverstone something. Any comments on that Asus with Knoppmyth for HD? Will the onboard spdif work or do I need to use the chaintech?

Currently I cannot get the HD-3000 to work nor the SPDIF thru the r5a26 install.

Thanks mucho for any advice. I've looked thru the Tier 1 stuff and not much micro-atx mboards there or Intel stuff !

The Northwood core will run substantially cooler, which can translate to quieter with the right HSF. While the rack style cases look nice they then to have poorer airflow and thus run hotter and noiser. It might be easier to hide a minitower case behind the rack... For the motherboard, search the forums, particularly the Tier 1 and Tier 2 Hardware Recommendations topics.

I have the abit AS8, but I'm not sure which pin count your proc is or my mb is, it came with proc, but it works 100% I am doing spdif passthrough and using the onboard firewire, nic, sound(spdif) there is no onboard video, but you mentioned having a 5200 already anyways which is what I use.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

If he's got a Northwood, most likely it's socket 478, since those predate the LGA775 stuff.

Yea..I have a northwood 478 Maybe I'll look into getting a LGA chip or just go the athlon route. I just want to get a system up and running but don't have 1500 bucks to spend so i want to use my existing stuff.