Can you tell me which Lian Li case model?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112185
Looks like the price today is a little less than what I paid.
With a mini-ATX board, I had a little leftover room between the board & the power supply. The 45 nm Core2s & Pentium Dual Cores have very short heat sinks; plenty of room between the top of the fan and the case.
http://flickr.com/photos/bwa32/2907601147/sizes/l/in/set-72157607678918613/
I am using the ASUS P5Q-EM board; lots of people on avsforum.com using it. Fantastic.
Regarding MacBooks in closed-lid mode, I got tired of my MBP always going back to the main screen on reboot and just bought an iMac. I found it too finicky and no way to tell the laptop to always disable the "internal" screen.