Ongoing HTPC Motherboards with HDMI (1 Viewer)

[mascot]

Wow! That test of the new 780g's GPU (HD3200) hardware video acceleration really blew me away! Way to go ATI!!!

Asus AM2+ based motherboard is out this week here in Sweden with 780g+SB700 and 8 channel realtek hd audio chip! I allready listed it for my HTPC rig...

ASUS M3N78-EMH HDMI motherboard

/edit my mistake, ofcourse the M3AN78-EMH HDMI

(released this week with 780g+sb700+8 channel realtek hd audio chip, HDMI with audio included, etc etc!!!)
Corsair XMS2 Xtreme TwinX DDR2 PC6400/800MHz CL5 2x1GB
Silverstone Nightjar ST30NF 300W
Samsung SpinPoint T166 HD252KJ 16MB 250GB 518:-
(Might go 2.5 inch spinpoint to silent even more)
Antec Fusion Black 430
OrigenAE MCE Remote Controller
LG GGW-H20L
Noctua NF-S12-800 120mm (two of those)
Scythe Ninja Mini
AMD Athlon X2 BE-2300 1,9GHz
+
two Technotrend DVB-S2 tv-cards.. (can I use mediaportal with those to record/view, view PIP from two channels etc??)
USB Phoenix card reader to put my satellite paytv card (supported in media portal??)

offtopic:

In the specs of mediaportal it says you can use a "external DVD-player". This means I can use Cyberlink Power DVD Ultra (för HDDVD/Bluray playback) ???

Also: Can I run *******s Anydvd HD in the background of media portal for region free playback etc?? (ofcourse its run under windows in background I know that, but is it fully supported in mediaportal??)

Fan included with Scythe mini ninja not needed/used at all, completely fanless cooling of the CPU.
2 x Noctua NF-S12-800's in the Fusion run on 800 rpm keeps the CPU at 45 degrees celcius after 100% load för six hours. (Friend of mine tried on his setup, only difference is that he's got motherboard with the AMD 690g+SB600 chipset, rest is same as setup above..)

Fantastic value, fantasic performance!!

 

[mad_cow]

Hi, mascot!

I'm from Sweden too, and I'm also going to build a HTPC soon with a motherboard which have the 780G chipset. I'm just wondering where you have got the information about the release date (This week!?) for a 780G based motherboard?

If it is the motherboard you are writing about in your post (ASUS M3N78-EMH HDMI), you should know that it is a nvidia 8200 based motherboard with the MCP78S chipset and not the 780G chipset. http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5543&Itemid=1

I though hope that you have just misspelled and that it shoul be ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI, which is the motherboard which uses the 780g chipset.

/mad_cow

 

[mascot]

I made a mistake on prisjakt.se! Searched for "asus emh" (didnt remember the hole model nr) and that one came up and is released this week.

Looks like the 780g board will be around very soon though people keep saying end of this month/early march!

But its worth the wait. That test on the 780g with the single core athlon 3500+ with 22.4% average load on a 28 mpbs bitrate h264 video really blew me away. My 1.9 ghz be-2300 will do the job and more!!

Cant wait for this last piece in my rig... hope its available soon!

 

[Beechus]

sweet, nice boards, nice price- so long 2 wait though

 

[ichessblumen]

just ordered a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, 780G , yieppieh. the trader wrote me that he has a confirmed delivery date on Feb,18th,2008. 85€.....

so i'll report as soon as i'll have it assembled with an Athlon BE 2400 and a Toshiba HD-DVD drive on my Full HD TV-Set...

 

[mascot]

Great! Were did you order it from?? Nevermind. This surely means it will be available for me in sweden very very soon!!!

I'm also looking at the BE-2x00 for low power consumtion and passive cooling. I've seen passive cooling on these processors easy as they seem to keep very low temps!

Please return with a full test result with HDDVD discs@1080p when you get your setup done with this motherboard! I'm eager to see if we have the good results with image quality, CPU usage etc as we all expect!

Is there any other boards in the pipeline with 780g+SB700 AND ALC889 (realteks top of the line soundchip!!) ??? I don't think so. It seems all other manufacturers put ALC883 or 888. 889 is the best with 192 khz, DVD-A/SACD enabled etc.

Also, in recent years Gigabyte have produced great motherboards, so I dont mind them at all for my rig!!

/edit IMPORTAND INFO REGARDING THE AUDIO IN 780G: (from avsforum) This makes atleast me reconsider a MCP78 (nvidia) baserd board instead!

NVIDIA GeForce 8200 -

NVIDIA has been discreetly working on the GeForce 8200 for the past several months and introduced it at CES 2008. We have provided preliminary details on new features like HybridPower and Hybrid SLI (GeForce Boost) along with NVIDIA already providing early specifications on their website. The GeForce 8200 is shaping up to be a formidable competitor to the AMD 780G and from all indications an excellent uATX platform for SOHO or HTPC applications.

After posting some early comments about the 780G chipset, we had a flood of requests wondering about the HDMI output capabilities of the GeForce 8200. We will have further details later today but at this time the chipset is HDMI 1.3a "compliant". The mGPU does not support 12-bit or 16-bit deep color but meets the other video specific criteria. Also, 8-channel LPCM output is fully supported but decoding of TrueHD and DTS-HD MA is not available. We are still trying to understand NVIDIA's translation on the lack of TrueHD/DTS-HD MA support.

We do understand the chipset will not decode these audio standards but what is still not confirmed is if TrueHD/DTS-HD MA streams can be passed to PowerDVD 7 Ultra (or other supporting software applications), decoded, and then passed on as multichannel LPCM or out to a supporting A/V receiver to be decoded. We hope to have a final answer later this morning. In the meantime, we have to continue to express our concerns about the lack of multichannel LPCM output over HDMI in the AMD 780G product. Intel has already introduced this feature in the G35 chipset and NVIDIA will be introducing it later this month or in early March.

The specifications and features of the 780G and GeForce 8200 are very similar and most users will probably be satisfied with either solution. However, when it comes HTPC duty, generally the more advanced features the better, and in this case having multichannel LPCM output is an important distinction. We will have to wait to compare the video quality of AMD's UVD technology to the revamped NVIDIA PureVideo HD engine along with Hybrid CrossFire versus Hybrid SLI, but right now it appears NVIDIA is a couple of steps ahead in the audio area.

GeForce 8200 also supports full hardware acceleration for all three codecs, MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264.

 

[ichessblumen]

hi mascot,

i ordered it here

i hope i'll get it in 7 days and then have a preliminary setup in order to test it on my toshiba hd-dvd drive/LG 37" Full-HD TV.

so long.....

 

[mascot]

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H is all of a sudden removed from GIGABYTE - Upgrade Your Life (Gigabytes official webpage)

How come??

Anyway. This is the one for me aswell!

I've not decided 100% on the CPU yet though. Both BE-2400 and 5000+ Black Edition is good value for money at the moment, and both run great completely passive cooled in a Antec Fusion (or NSK248) with the Scythe Mini Ninja for example.

The 5000+ Black Edition is a nodge faster but the BE-2400 runs at 45w wich is an advatage ofcourse. Both will do great with bluray/HDDVD at 1080p together with the HD3200 graphics in the 780g and will also handle 1080p mkv's in x264 without problem.

Hope you get the board on time. I read everywhere it will first be launced around Cebit time wich is middle of march!

I want it NOW!!! Wait, wait wait... duh! Hate waiting!

 

[kszabo]

why did they remove the board? Maybe the new ATi/AMD chipsets are a flop. I own a 690G/x1250 board and afaik a lot of motherboard constructors have big problems with bios (like eg. asus) and drivers, with HW acceleration support etc. And these problems are known since months, remaining unsolved! A lot of 690G/x1250 owner end up buying a new graphic card or motherboard, seriously considering to become nVidia customer! Myself inclusive.

Just be careful buying these boards and wait for some user feedback!

 

[ichessblumen]

mascot,

well, that's "abit" ;-) suspiciuos....the board's vanished from the gigabyte site. maybe amd do not want to ship it before cebit. if so....

to me, the be-2400 ist the only cpu which makes sense. it's powerful enough at a low wattage. why use an overdozed
monster when gaming and belonging gfx-card is not an option?

kszabo,

the chipset was tested (see link site before) and imho chipset is chipset whether applied on an asus, biostar or whatever mainboard.

i'm going to test it and if it's not providing the nedded hw acceleration i'll give it back. so no money is wasted.