mATX board with LAN and 5.1 audio with optical output

[apriest]

Hello!

I'm looking for a good P4 board that is mATX with AGP, onboard LAN, and a good onboard audio solution. It has to have 5.1 surround sound support with DVDs and games. Also has to have optical TOS inputs and outputs (or at least output). USB 2.0 would be nice, but not necessary. ATA RAID is also not necessary, but would be a nice option. Chipset, DDR or RDRAM, etc. is secondary to onboard LAN and audio with optical output. I'm putting together a small 2U rackmount computer for an audio application, and there will be no room for a PCI audio card with these features. Also, is it possible to install an AGP card with an AGP riser like you can with PCI? Any suggestions for a motherboard that would match these requirements?

Thanks!
Aaron

 

[DarthEuro]

The only one I know of is the AOpen MX4GR ($111 on pricewatch.com).

It appears to have support both optical in/out through an expansion slot bracket, see here (S/PDIF bracket). On the other hand, the on-board sound chip does not appear to support 5.1 output.

But if fast 3D graphics are not important fo you, with an on-board graphics (like this card), you can install your own sound card instead.

 

[apriest]

DarthEuro,

That's pretty impressive! Thanks for the recommendation. It has a good chipset, onboard LAN, DDR PC2700 support, 533MHz bus, USB 2.0, onboard video, pretty loaded. Only thing it's missing that I could possibly think of would be ATA RAID. I would like to use a Radeon 8500DV with an AGP riser slot if that is even possible. Does anyone make AGP riser slots? There may be room for one more slot if I can use a ribbon cable (not PCI or anything) like a USB header cable or that S/PDIF-TOS board has. If there is room for a 2nd slot like that this would work perfect! Any other motherboard manufacturers make something like this that anyone knows of?

Thanks!
Aaron

 

[DarthEuro]

I haven't seen ANY P4 micro-ATX board with ATA RAID - There may not be enough room!

And regarding an "AGP riser" - What is that? I've never heard of it...

Other feature-packed micro-ATX boards you might consider:
Asus P4B533-M - 533 MHz cpu, 6 USB2.0 ports, 1 firewire/1394 port, LAN, 4-ch Ac97 sound

Another thing you could do is to buy the Shuttle SS51 mini-barebones system, and then remove the motherboard from the box and mount it in your rack system. Then you would get S/PDIF in/out, USB2.0, frewire, etc...