ASUS M3A78-EM or GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H

[Nolonemo]

I'm on the fence between these two boards - prices are about the same and customer reviews are about the same (60% 5s and 20% 4s) at the Egg.

I'll be using the boards for a HTPC with a Blu-Ray ROM drive; will want to take advantage of the crossfire hybid feature to pair up either my ATI 2400 or 3450 card with the onboard graphics (the miniumum I need to get smooth 1080p playback). DVI/HDMI out to TV (but no audio via HDMI - audio out will be S/PDIF). No gaming anticipated.

I'll be moving over an Althon 64 X2 5200+ Brisbane and 2 1GB sticks of Patriot DDR2 800 memory. OS is Vista Home Premium 32.

 

[coolpurplefan]

OK, first of all, you may want to take a peek at this thread:
http://forums.amd.com/game/mes...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

There appears to be issues with the 780G chipset but I've yet to find the same kind of complaints coming from 790G owners. HOWEVER, this appears to be a driver issue and may be resolved in the future.

I have an Asus M3A78-EM and I've already said a billion times here with the 780G chipset and HD 3000 series or HD 4000 series ATI graphics, I get either a little bit of lag in 1080p videos (hardly noticeable on 4000 series) or even when looking at the images changing during an installation of UT2004, the images appear block by block as if in slow motion on HD3200 and a lot faster but still visible on the HD 4670.

Appart from that, on the Asus, you need to make sure you have the correct speed for the RAM inside the BIOS (I mean 400 MHz instead of 200 MHz.)

EDIT: I'd also like to add that if you really want to use the on-board graphics on a motherboard, then you might want to get the Gigabyte model with the SidePort memory. It has a P in the model number like GPM or whatever at the end. This is because the on-board graphics is going to use your system RAM which is slower.

 

[renethx]

Originally posted by: Nolonemo
No gaming anticipated.

Then Hybrid CrossFire is useless. Only the GPU the display is connected to is used for video playback.

I recommend:

- Phenom X3 8450
- ASUS M3A78-EM

for perfect HD/SD video playback.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: coolpurplefan
EDIT: I'd also like to add that if you really want to use the on-board graphics on a motherboard, then you might want to get the Gigabyte model with the SidePort memory. It has a P in the model number like GPM or whatever at the end. This is because the on-board graphics is going to use your system RAM which is slower.

If all you're doing is video playback, SidePort is a waste of money.

Originally posted by: Nolonemo
I'll be using the boards for a HTPC with a Blu-Ray ROM drive; will want to take advantage of the crossfire hybid feature to pair up either my ATI 2400 or 3450 card with the onboard graphics (the miniumum I need to get smooth 1080p playback). DVI/HDMI out to TV (but no audio via HDMI - audio out will be S/PDIF). No gaming anticipated.

The Hybrid CrossFire solution with your 2400 or 3450 is pointless for your config. The 780G has a built in equivalent of a slightly slower clocked 3450, which is alone fully capable of doing video decode on HDMI all by itself. If you're doing any sort of gaming - which you said you're not - then Hybrid CrossFire might be useful.

Personally, I'd take a long hard look at this Foxconn board. It has all the same features, costs a little less, and should be rock-solid stable to boot.

 

[Nolonemo]

Thanks for your replies.

I ended up going with the Asus. Too bad about the Hybrid Crossfire being useless for video playback. I'll try the onboard GPU and see if it works. On my old rig (same CPU/memory/OS (vista 32), PowerDVD played 1080p Blu-Ray fine with at 2400 Pro, but ArcSoft Total Media Theater stuttered until I made the marginal upgrade to the 3450 (I use Arsoft now because of good integration with Vista MC). I'll try the onboard GPU and see if it has enough horsepower (sound like it falls between the 2400 and the 3450), otherwise I'll use my passive-cooled 3450 card (which I'd rather not do to cut down on heat), or if I have the display problem one of the replies mentioned.

Nolo

 

[deruberhanyok]

Interested to hear your results, nolonemo. I've been using an M3A78-EM for about three months now in my HTPC and it has been flawless. The one thing I haven't tried is blu-ray playback as I don't have a blu-ray drive, but what I've read about 780G tells me it should be able to handle playback with something as low speed as a 1.5GHz Athlon X2.

 

[renethx]

780G+Athlon is good enough for progressive contents (the majority of BD movies are progressive), but a bit weak for interlaced contents (deinterlacing requires lots of power). 780G+Phenom is very strong in this point because of HT 3.0.

 

[p1tin]

Guys...For those who have problems having smooth 1080p play:
Anybody who is having slightly higher configuration or struggling with making 1080p videos in latest system, I think the following will Surely be of help:
SM player latest - decent performance...video played smoothly but audio out of sync n choppy. scoured oc forums in net and did this in SMPlayer: changed autosync from 100 to 1 (quote From SMplayer forum: when autosync is enabled, this factor is 100 by default, but setting the factor to 1 instead will do something special: the a/v sync correction algorithm will be adjusted automatically and the audio will stay in sync with the video for (almost) the entire time. At least that is what I experienced. -autosync 1" fixes the issue almost completely.
Other tips for bad HD video playback are: disable the loop filter (for HD movies anyway) and enable frame drops;

Result: Audio sync perfect but video stuttered to get in sync with audio(dunno)...so...
Still I faced problems & also did this:
5. Downloaded KM player and played 1080p - WOWWW! video played like butter smooth !..but audio went out of sync slowly over time (after a minute)..with video playing smoothly.
-this is excerpt from my post here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=31&threadid=2234882

the point here is that it is not totally a hardware issue (many of you would b knowing this) but the player n codecs too plays deciding factor.

 

[coolpurplefan]

Originally posted by: p1tin
lots of info...

Uh, I know some of you can talk about software and all that but I saw something I found peculiar. When I was playing Quicktime movie trailers, I no lag with an X2 5400+ and X1650XT but with an HD 4670, I saw what appeared to be an almost microscopic lag. This doesn't make sense from what I've read because the X1000 didn't have true video acceleration anyway. Whatever it is, it boggles my mind. I may possibly be a driver issue but the point is, I think hardware DOES play a part in it. I mean, I played the same exact Quicktime movie trailers with a socket 754 single core 2.4 GHz processor with 1 GB of RAM and a Geforce 6600 and it hitched and coughed when I played a 1080p video on it.

 

[Nolonemo]

Originally posted by: deruberhanyok
Interested to hear your results, nolonemo. I've been using an M3A78-EM for about three months now in my HTPC and it has been flawless. The one thing I haven't tried is blu-ray playback as I don't have a blu-ray drive, but what I've read about 780G tells me it should be able to handle playback with something as low speed as a 1.5GHz Athlon X2.

I ended up going with the Asus board, expect to finish the build this weekend and will report back to the thread.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

I built two PCs with M3A78-EM boards and so far no complaints.

 

[coolpurplefan]

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1013555

I think I finally found the thread for the Athlon vs Phenom test but the post links back to this site. (Duh!) http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3258&p=4

I wonder how the new dual core Phenoms would do in that test though.

 

[renethx]

780G+Phenom is an old topic that has been frequently discussed in the AVS Forum thread since March (Bingo13 = Gary Key). Basically 780G+HT3.0 is much better than 780G+HT2.0. Even 780G+Griffin (mobile K8+HT3.0) gives a similar result, let alone the dual core Phenom.

GeForce 8200/8300+Phenom is also much better than Athlon in video playback.

BTW the dual-core Phenom is just Phenom with two cores disabled, with TDP 95W. Unless it's price is below $80, Phenom X3 (8450 $100 etc.) is a better choice (much better performance with the same power consumption). Review here.

 

[coolpurplefan]

Originally posted by: renethx
780G+Phenom is an old topic that has been frequently discussed in the AVS Forum thread since March (Bingo13 = Gary Key). Basically 780G+HT3.0 is much better than 780G+HT2.0. Even 780G+Griffin (mobile K8+HT3.0) gives a similar result, let alone the dual core Phenom.

GeForce 8200/8300+Phenom is also much better than Athlon in video playback.

BTW the dual-core Phenom is just Phenom with two cores disabled, with TDP 95W. Unless it's price is below $80, Phenom X3 (8450 $100 etc.) is a better choice (much better performance with the same power consumption). Review here.

Have you seen Phenom+HD4670 vs Athlon+HD4670?

 

[renethx]

Originally posted by: coolpurplefan
Have you seen Phenom+HD4670 vs Athlon+HD4670?

If you mean HQV Benchmarks, then yes (I did the test myself). Both Athlon+HD4670 and Phenom+HD4670 gave perfect scores.

- HQV: 130/130
- HD HQV: 100/100

Post-processing is done within the graphics card (stream processors, memory controller and video memory), hence CPU (more precisely HT, on-die memory controller and system memory) plays little role.

A rule of thumb is: in the AMD platform,

- If you use IGP, then choose Phenom for better video playback experience.
- If you use dGPU, CPU doesn't matter (you still need some CPU power if HA doesn't work for some reason, however).

 

[coolpurplefan]

Perfect lol. OK.

Thanks for the info, that's interesting to know. Do you know if you have to click anything inside the CCC to activate AVIVO or is that just automatic?

 

[renethx]

AVIVO is not a single function but the name of a group of post-processing functions done by the stream processors and the driver (there is no fixed unit for them unlike UVD2). You will see various options under "AVIVO Video" in CCC.

 

[batuchka]

I have a couple of builds on MSI K9A2GM-FIH and i must say i am really impressed - latest BIOS also officially supports the new 125W TDP 9950 - rigs ran an x2 6000 and x4 9550 (ran a 9850BE for kicks hehe) Well if i were you i would get the 5200 EE 65W TDP Windsor - that extra 1mb L2 will show its teeth in games and encoding especially ^^
http://i137.photobucket.com/al...chka/brissyvswindy.jpg
So ya - above mobo extremely not fussy about PSU/RAM, stable from day 1 and think i'm gonna build more 780G rigs for mates with it in future!

 

[coolpurplefan]

Originally posted by: batuchka
I have a couple of builds on MSI K9A2GM-FIH and i must say i am really impressed - latest BIOS also officially supports the new 125W TDP 9950 - rigs ran an x2 6000 and x4 9550 (ran a 9850BE for kicks hehe) Well if i were you i would get the 5200 EE 65W TDP Windsor - that extra 1mb L2 will show its teeth in games and encoding especially ^^
http://i137.photobucket.com/al...chka/brissyvswindy.jpg
So ya - above mobo extremely not fussy about PSU/RAM, stable from day 1 and think i'm gonna build more 780G rigs for mates with it in future!

Wow, do I ever feel like a doofus for missing that 5200 EE. I automatically assumed my 5400+ would be faster at 2.8 GHz. But that 2x1MB L2 cache almost makes me regret now.