While I think this Maingear HTPC looks good, and it’s certainly spec’ed well, I’m not sure I buy the idea of serious PC gaming in the living room. Gaming from your couch is about laying back with a controller and rocking the Halo-Kazooie or whatever it is the kids have these days. I know Phantom has been trying (ineffectively, for years now) to change that, but they’re not going to break into the market riding on the back of this $1800 (minimum) mega-HTPC.
A Core i7 on an X58 mobo, with dual 9800GTs and a ton of RAM means you could play just about anything using the included Phantom Lapboard, but it just doesn’t seem right yet. If you’re gaming, you want to do it on a low-latency monitor with a nice mouse like the X8 or Death Adder, and if you’re more into watching downloaded movies or streaming Netflix, an Xbox 360 or Popcorn Hour will do you just fine for a couple bills.
That said, people for whom money is less of an object should jump on this thing (if it isn’t loud as hell), because hey, why not?