Redo MAME arcade "guts".

[screamingtiger]

A couple years ago I built 2 arcades, one for me and one for my brother.  Attached is a picture before they were completed 100%

Mine is running an old Athlon II 3 core 2.9 GHZ (AM3).  It has a huge gaming card in from back then (2009?).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150369

Im not sure that card is really doing much.

Anyways it runs everything quite well.  I have mame and hyperspin, with all the other emulators such as nes etc..

The main issue I have is that the card takes up a bunch of room, and the computer generates a lot of heat.  *I have added fans etc but its like a heater.


I also am not fond of hyperspin.  Its buggy, disconnected, and poorly written.

I am thinking for trying a linux mame machine out to replace the athlon windows machine.  Can someohe answer some questions:

-What front ends are good in linux?  Dont needs tons of eye candy like HS but something functional.
-I am considering a 5350 kabini system.  I am wondering if I would see a performance decrease or not.  The main thing that draws me to it is the fact it uses very little power compared to my current system.

I have seem some varous posts on teh Kabini system, but all the benchmarks I have seen put the 5350 above my athlon II.
  The highest system I plan to play is gamecube.  I dont feel that newer systems emulate well with all the new contoller types but I digress.