MATX mobo recommendation for an HTPC build

[cliftonite]

Hello all,

I could no longer resist the MS 30% off promotion on ebay and have decided to jump on the HTPC bandwagon. This is what I have ordered thus far:

Q6600
LIAN LI PC-C37B

I will likely order an ATI 4550 low profile card, the Lite On 401S Bluray player, 4GB RAM, and a cheapo HD as everything expect for the BluRay discs will be played off my fileserver.

I had a queston about what Mobo to get, should i get an ASUS P5B or the ASUS P5E? I cant tell what the P5E would offer me as I would be using the ATI's HDMI output. Also should I get a soundcard or will the onboard sound be sufficent? I dont want to limit myself to ASUS but those seem to be highly rated on Newegg. I would be willing to pay more if the onboard sound solution improves with the price.

 

[renethx]

P5B? P5E? LIAN LI PC-C37B accepts only mATX. Look for a mATX mb of chipset G31, G33, G35, G43, G45.

- GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L
- ASRock G43Twins-FullHD

4550 has a built-in HD audio controller so that you don't need any other sound device in PC.

 

[edplayer]

why not get a 9300/9400 based board?

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3432

 

[manimal]

I would seriously look at the new 9300 boards coming out for audio over pcm and the 2d perf is respectableish. Most importantly if you intend to run via hdmi to a receiver so you can take advantage of 8 channel pcm consider the issues alot of people are having with the ati cards right now. I absolutely love the sound I get now out my htpc but the consant drop outs and home theater receiver compatibility issues make me long for the 86000 gt and analogue audio cards I used to use.

 

[Skott]

I too would say if you can wait another couple weeks to do so. The new mobos are to arrive end of this month from what I hear. When you get this close to a new chipset launch then its a smart thing to do.

 

[OCChronic]

GA-EG45M-DS2H

It's got all of the goodies like 1600+ FSB(OC's to at least 500+), 1066+ DDR2(most have reached 1200+ easily), HDMI, DVI, VGA, Dolby Digital DTS, Firewire, same great overclocking BIOS as Gigabyte the P45 boards and is at a decent price too.

The only drawback and it a MAJOR one is the PCI-E x16 slot is only a x4 slot electrically. Which means that anything above an 8800 ULTRA would saturate the slot's bandwidth. I'm waiting to see if they come out with a DS2R version like they did with the G33 chipset which had a full x16 slot.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Pro...ductName=GA-EG45M-DS2H

 

[GEOrifle]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128353

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