ZOTAC GF8200-C-E AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8200 Mini ITX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Great little board, does everything as advertised. I paired it with a Athlon II X2 240. Installed 32 bit Ubuntu Linux, and everything works out of the box except wi-fi. If you google "launchpad bug #162671", post #50 explains how to make it work. Once I found that, wi-fi was up and running within minutes. I have not had any USB issues; I'm using a USB mouse, keyboard, remote, and sometimes flashdrive. No problems at all.

Cons: The vt6656 driver is not included in the default Ubuntu kernel, it needs to be manually installed. I have read that the driver does not support WPA, but I have not verified this, I am using WEP.

Overall Review: The GPU runs at about 60 degrees Celsius when it's not doing anything, and gets up to 75 degrees when I'm watching TV. That's probably more a function of having no case fan than the motherboard, but it's worth a mention.

Pros: Nice board for HTPC. Small and powerful.

Cons: No IDE, included dongle needed for HDMI connector

Overall Review: Watch out for their rebate policy designed to reject your rebate. You have to wait at least 30 days but not longer than 45 days to postmark your rebate. This is not very clear from the rebate form. I learned about it by contacting the company. When I suggested it was a ploy to screw their customers I received the following from Daniel Park, RMA Specialist:

Our company motto is that “Our customers are always right.”. Please understand that our policy is our policy and that it will stand as long as our president says so. He created the motto and he created the policy. If you can not respect our motto as well as our policy. Do as you please. Just know you are making a big mistake. Have a wonderful day.

I worry this odd version of "the customer is always right' might apply to warranty returns as well. Lets hope not.