with all those cool things on your carputer.... you still can't just throw in an xbox game and have it load.

not putting you down, just saying you want different things. I am having this battle now, this is why I posed in this thread.

I have a ripped apart desktop sitting on the desk I am typing on right now..... I also have a softmoded xbox. The problem is, what will you get more use out of.... the only reason I want GPS and touchscreen is to have the toys (same reason most people here have carputers). At the same time I would like to be able to play XBOX games and as far as car show cool factor (I have noticed lots of people run carputers in non show cars) the xbox seams to be the easier options. I really like the XBMC large icons with cover art from the albums of the music I would be using, this would probably get more use in my car than a touch screen and gps.

Like I said the original poster has to decide what he wants, I have seen some really cool custom installs of XBOX' with remote power/eject buttons and remote mount dvd-roms.

When you talk about size, a desktop mobo with PCI cards.... won't save you any space, even if you remote mount the DVD drive from the desktop. I am sure you have seen the custom mini xbox cases, these are much smaller than any mobo w/ pci cards sticking out off of it.

There are good and bad points to each, the original poster really needs to post up what they want to do with their install to get a better idea of what solution would be better for them. In my case either option loses some of the things I like about each, in the end it's gonna be the choice that best fits my overall install.