I'm planning to make a KnoppMyth box based on an Micro-Atx mainboard.

1) is the Intel 865G chipset ok or is 865PE + seperate vga card better
2) if going for the A7N8X-vm is a seperate vga card a good idea
3) is the ADI soundchips a good choice ADI 1980, 1981, 1985

I'm currently thinking that Intel is better than AMD for a KnoppMyth - so I am considering a solution like this:

Case: Antec-INC Aria MicroATX Cube Case
Mainboard: INTEL MBPC D865GRHLK (*)
VGA: Creative GeForceFX 5200 Ultra / 128 MB / TV-Out
Tuner: WinTV-PVR350
HDD: 200-300 GB SATA
RAM: Dont know yet - Adata DDR400 maby

*Intel 865G Chipset, Extreme Graphics 2, Agp 8x / 4x, Dual Channel DDR 400/333/266 SDRAM, Max 4GB 4x Slots, 6 Channel intergrated Audio (ADI 1985) , USB 2.0, 4 back / 4 front, 2x SATA 150 / ATA100/66, Intel Pro 100/1000, TPM MODULE

Actually KnoppMyth has excellent support for AMD based solutions, particularly MoBos with nVidia chipsets. Not to mention that when I was pricing configurations the AMD based ones were ~$100 cheaper between MoBo, CPU and memory. When planning this box remember to think "appliance".

On the Intel chipset front you've got three options if you want TV output.

1) get a cheap Nvidia Geforce4 MX440-8X based video card. NVidia is the only vendor with supported TV out under Linux, and driving a TV is a relatively undemanding 2-D application. Cost: ~$40-$60

2) Get an external scan converter and use it with MoBo video or a cheap low end card. Some of the converters are supposed to provide excellent picture quality but some of them are utter junk. Cost: ~$85 for the converter plus the video card or the extra cost for MoBo video.

3) Skip the video card completely and depend on the PVR-350's video output.. Cost: ~$45 and plenty of hard work. Setting this up is supposed to be pretty hairy.

On the sound front, if your'e planning on using this box as an MP3/OGG jukebox and/or hooking it up to decent speakers or a receiver you may want to "splurge" and spend an extra $30-$50 for a decent soundcard. The sound support in the i865 chipset has couple gotchas like no PCM volume control...