I'm looking to finally put a near-silent PC into my living room. I've been searching all night for MicroATX motherboards with the right mix of integrated components to satisfy me - it's difficult.
These are the must-haves:
100baseTX (Fast Ethernet) minimum (gigabit is fine if available)
USB 2.0 (High Speed)
IEEE1394 (Firewire) at least one port (and hopefully at least another internal one)
Integrated Graphics with TV Output (this has to be on the mobo or via a header, not PCI/AGP)
Integrated Sound (what doesn't have this?)
Must have 3 PCI slots right next to either an AGP or PCIe slot (this is a must or it won't work with the case/riser I want to use)
I've found only one product that fits all requirements so far: MSI RS480M2-IL
Review Here It requires an AMD processor (i'd likely get the 3000 model at 1.8GHz)
If I could find something that uses Socket 478, then I could get away with using a CPU I already own, saving me a bit of $$.
I'd be putting this board in a case that only accepts microATX and uses a riser to make 2 PCI slots and either the AGP or PCIe slot available. I'll need both PCI slots free (for TV-Encoder cards), so I can't throw one away on a firewire card if it's not built into the mobo.
Any suggestions?
Bruno