Media Center Madness - Part Infinity

So, I got rid of my fast Socket P4 chips for cash, or donated them to family members. My two 3.0 chips are gone. My 2.8 GHz chip is gone. My 2.53 GHz chip is with my sister-in-law, leaving me with a 2.0 GHz, 1.5 GHz, and a 2.30 GHz Celeron. What am I going to do now?

I also sold the motherboard I used with an AMD Athlon 3000+ to a friend Meatloaf, who's media center motherboard died. I took the two 1 GB sticks of RAM in there and donated them to my mom-in-law, who's computer is "slow". (Athlon XP 1800+ @ 1.53 GHz w/1 GB RAM and Windows XP, and a ton of startup programs. *Then* I deleted some extra cruft from her startup programs. Hope that helps!) I really don't know what I'm going to do with the 3000+, but if I find a motherboard, I think I'll upgrade her computer with that.

I got an ATI X300SE PCI express video card with passive cooling and DVI/VGA/composite ports. Traded my old PCI FX 5200 for it to Fodeesha. He also had a 8400GS PCIe card with DVI/HDMI/S-Video ports. I plan on using that for something HTPC-related, for sure. I snagged that for a stick of RAM.

I did snag an AMD BE-2300 chip, from my friend, ScootZilla, because his motherboard died, and I have a few sticks of DDR 2. Natrually, I'm thinking about building a 780G-based media center PC with that. A NewEgg search for "AM2 HDMI" lead me to this full-size ECS A780GM-A Motherboard. I might take a chance with it.

I also picked up a couple of Vista MCE remotes at Fry's, after returning a remote that didn't really meet my needs. Thinking I really got violated by buying locally, I was pleased the SIIG CE-000022-S1 Vista Infrared MCE Remote for $12.00 more on NewEgg. Hopefully, I'll get a box set up to test this thing out soon. It should compliment the Media Center Keyboards that I have as well.

If I go with that full-size motherboard, then I'll need to choose an appropriate case. I'm still pretty torn about that. I have a hard time justifying $200 on something, but you certainly can't have a beige tower sitting next to the TV. Cutting mATX out of the equation should at least narrow the choices down... maybe I can get a case tall enough to accommodate my Scythe Ninja tower and run it totally passive, which would rock.