I was in your shoe once. Maybe my spec below in signature could help. If you do not GC, much more small case could do the job. Good power for the price plus HDMI, around 1.5k should give you a decent HTPC.

This post has been edited by catsper: Dec 19 2010, 06:55 PM

Should be ok but depend on board and case. Which form factor you are going into?

MATX? MITX?

They are board size in general. You have more PCI-E slot for bigger board, smaller board reduce space. You can go full ATX size for typical CPU, but some people prefer smaller footprint for HTPC. Refer here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroATX