I'm looking for some recommendations for a knoppmyth front/back end combo. I'd like to build a system that is small, quiet and most importantly cool (as in, won't raise the temperature of the living room 5 degrees). I'm leaning towards a micro atx, socket 754 box. I like the Sempron 3100+ becuase it has the Cool'n Quiet technology and is stinking cheap right now. Does anyone have a motherboard they can recommend that just works? I need at least 1 AGP, and 1 PCI slot.

I'm using this

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=cat3&product_code=343800&Pn=Socket_754_AMD_mATX_Motherboard

from compusa. It works fine and does HD (I'm using a GeForce 6200 card). I'm using the Sempron 2800+ overclocked. I don't know how much the overclocking helps, I've never done a comparison test.

Its quiet, and I guess (hope?) its cool enough. The one time I checked temps it was fine. I've since added two tuner cards so I'm sure its running hotter, but its a stable system. Noise and temp will also be dictated by your case. I use an Antec NSK2400.

However, the shortcomings from the Sempron will show up if you do a lot of video processing, such as flagging commercials, xvid conversion, burning shows to DVD, etc. I don't do much processing, but when I do it seems to take forEVER. The CPU upgrade path is limited compared to a more modern socket type. But this setup works fine for me.

Is there a reason you prefer 754?

I don't think it has an AGP slot, but the Asus m2npv boards that I have work great. I have three of them, 1 running a be/fe and 2 diskless frontends. All have AMD 3600-3800s, 1 gig Corsair memory and they do SD just fine. I don't think there would be any issues running HD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131014

I'm using a MSI945GZM3 which is a Intel uAtx board with a Core2 6400 processor, 1G ram and a MSI 7100GS card. It's an easy install with minimal setup. This board has 3 PCI slots and a PCI-e slot, I use all 3 PCI slots for the 3 DVB cardsI use. It runs quiet but not sure and keeps fairly cool. The box gets preety warm because of the 3 DVB cards and the Graphics card.
I just upgraded to that system from a Athlon 2800+ which struggled with HD DVB and glitched too often with SD DVB.

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R8.1 combined backend/frontend
ASUS P7H55-M Pro
Intel i3-550, 4Gb Ram
Seagate 500GB (Sata)
2x Dvico DVB-T Lite & Sony PlayTV (usb twin tuner)
TP-Link TL-WN881ND PCIe wifi card (not working)
Logitech Harmony One remote, CoolerMaster ATC-S case

I just picked up this combo from NewEgg. It's a bit out of spec for you since it has PCI-E, but it also has onboard NVidia VGA/DVI so might work depending on what video connection you want. For me it's a frontend only box so I put in a 40 gig laptop drive for the OS. The thing runs dead silent in the Antec NK1300 I put it in.

The sweet thing about the board is you can select thresholds in the bios for the case and cpu fan speeds based on respective temps. For the most part the cpu fan runs between 900 and 1500 rpms and is sufficient to keep the proc at less than 45C. In a quiet room you can't tell if it's running or not.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186115

Later,
Gonz

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Athlon 64 3400+ / 2G / 250G
3 x PVR250
1 x PVR150

FWIW I would not go for a Socket 754 design at this time. It's getting very hard to find anything except AM2 and an old 754 will probably be impossible to buy processors for shortly. If buying now, don't lock yourself into two-year old technology.

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