Best Micro ATX motherboard w no int vid card?

I'm an industrial designer who started learning a few weeks ago about building my own PC, so basically I want one that runs Adobe Creative Suite 2, and can run CS Source, and Starcraft II when it comes out.  I know we don't know the specs but I'm sure techies like you guys can make a pretty good guess.

The reason I want a micro ATX motherboard is because I saw the Lian Li PC-V300 case and really like it.  I wanna spend about $500 w/o monitor and get a pretty good system that will run Starcraft II decently.  Also, for that case, I think video cards 8" and over won't fit without cutting the metal floppy drive casing.

(EDITED) I see an ASUS MB with 4 or 8gb Ram potential for a Core 2 Duo, but is there one without an intergrated graphics card?  I wanna save as much $ as possible...

You only want to spend $500, but use a fifth of that budget on your case? I'd rething that budgeting decision a bit. Hell, between the case and the operating system nearly half your budget is gone already, and you don't even have any core components yet.RayvinAzn

I would only get XP home.  I guess the $500 wouldn't include the OS or the monitor. 

Screw the case its what on the inside that counts :)LouieV13

soooooooooooooooooo true

I would only get XP home. I guess the $500 wouldn't include the OS or the monitor.

camzaman

So basically, a $400 budget for a hard drive, optical drive, RAM, Micro-ATX motherboard, processor, power supply, and video card?

Well, I am just taking a guess here but I think Starcraft 2 is built off of a modified Warcraft 3 engine (engine name?) sort of like what C&C3 did with the Generals engine.

If youre on a budget, then I recommend a 7600GT or an 8600GT.  As for the motherboard, well, they are all the same.  Most seem priced at around 50 dollars or so but I saw an Asus one for about 130 that looks like it is pretty high performance.  Here are some motherboards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50001315&Description=micro+ATX&name=ASUS

Good luck with the build, I have always had an interest in building a super-high performance "boombox" computer.  Maybe when I graduate I will build one.