Any advice on this setup and HTPC

[maikinmoves]

I am planning on doing a full over haul,

HTPC

AMD Phantom II x4 905e 65 watts 2.5 GHz and will OC on rare occasions through the front bus when doing video editing and burning large amounts data.

ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX

FSP Group ZEN 400 400W ATX 2.2V SLI Certified CrossFire it is fanless and bronze 80 cert

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 can OC to 1600 in future will buy another 4GB

LG Black Blu-ray Reader & 16x DVD Burner

1.5 TB Seagate green Harddrive

Windows 7

And I am open to suggestions on video cards Willing to spend up 200 I will mostly use this for HD TV must be able run cross fire with the motherboard cause i plan to hook up the video on the motherboard to a seperate 21 inch monitor so i can surf the web as i watch tv on the TV

I am going to wait for Cable Cards to come out before I dive into tv tuners cause I don't want a the extra digital cable box

Should I buy a seperate sound card?

I am going to go with water cooling CPU, GPU, and north bridge, and I might build a radiator to hang in case to suck out any extra heat,, and I will build my own external radiator and pump assembly since I do plumbing for a living and I will mount a fan by that so when OC i can flip in on to dissapate the extra heat and So I hope to have a completely passive system 90+% of the time.

Some of the other key components of my set up are.


A 65 or 73 in Mitsubishi DLP TV

A Pioneer 840 watt 7.1 receiver

For speakers I am just going to set up speakers that I have lying around right now in a 5.1 setup but will upgrade to quality mid range 7.1 when the money is available.

Custom Stand for TV with space for HTPC, Reciever, center mount speaker, and three 12'' subs on the bottom but I will ask about that part in a different location. And I will leave space in the center incase I ever buy a Wii.

So if you have any tips suggestions thoughts concerns please let me know. And Should I run my HDMI cable from my comp into the receiver and then the TV or should I go computer to TV and use the optical out to the receiver. Thank you very much for all your help

[mickhames]

Seperate sound card - depends entirely what level of audio quality you want to achieve. If you want Hd [DTS-HD, Dolby True HD and DTS-MA] audio and your video board is unable to provide HD audio then yes you will need a HD audio card such as those made by Auzentech or ASUS. If you are happy with something less than HD audio then your on board sound may be sufficient for you, if short on cah then testing with on board sound may be the best option to start with and then upgrade later if need be.

[mickhames]

HDMI cable - this is directly related to whether you want HD audio or not. If you want HD audio then the cable run is: PC -> Receiver IN -> Receiver OUT -> TV/screen

[eugovector]

The new ATI 5700 have next gen audio bitstreamed over HDMI. I'd check those out or wait for the 5600 series next year which should be less expensive and use less electricity. Shouldn't need to spend more than $100 unless you want gaming power as well.