Good HTPC Mobo?

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Griff-LockerGnome

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I'm working on building my first HTPC, but i want to do it on the cheep (but I ain't afraid to pay a little extra for quality). I found someone selling a GA-P35-DS3L for only $50, and I think I might biet. MY main rig uses the same board, I just wanna know if it would serve well as a HTPC board.
 
Why? Pick up a 8300 series AMD board for $10-20 more and you won't need a video card.
 
It's a Radeon HD 3450 256MB. Its no gaming card, but it should work well in an HTPC. I got it when a neighbor was trashing one of his old setups
 
Griff-LockerGnome said:
It's a Radeon HD 3450 256MB. Its no gaming card, but it should work well in an HTPC. I got it when a neighbor was trashing one of his old setups
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Go with the 8300 mobo; the 3450 is rather crappy if you want to add blu ray playback any time soon.
 
alright then. Thanks

Looks like I got something to throw into the for sale section then!

Do you have a specific one in mind that's any good? I really appreciate the help!
 
Something with the 9300/9400 chipset (it looks like you already have an Intel chip). I have the Asus P5N7A-VM coming in on Monday from Newegg (an upgrade from a Biostar 7150 based board, mainly for fully hardware h.264 support and more than 4GB of RAM - I've started to do editing of Canon 5DmkII video files so the more memory and GPU offloading that I can do the better).
 
Really? I thought that it could...that's very helpful actually. I was just planning an HTPC build and I was going to go with a 780G mobo. So what chipset should I look for?
 
haffey said:
Really? I thought that it could...that's very helpful actually. I was just planning an HTPC build and I was going to go with a 780G mobo. So what chipset should I look for?
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See above posts....
 
8200/8300 is for AMD cpus, socket AM2+
9300/9400 is for Intel cpus, socket 775

The only difference between them is the speed of the core and shaders.

I don't have the exact speeds, but afaik, 9300 < 8200 < 8300 < 9400.

They're essentially the same chip with the same features, just different #s for different CPUs.
 
Logan321 said:
8200/8300 is for AMD cpus, socket AM2+
9300/9400 is for Intel cpus, socket 775

The only difference between them is the speed of the core and shaders.

I don't have the exact speeds, but afaik, 9300 < 8200 < 8300 < 9400.

They're essentially the same chip with the same features, just different #s for different CPUs.
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Thank you very much. :)
 
gigaxtreme1 said:
Actually, he could use the 3450 in hybrid crossfire mode with 790GX chipset.
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Yes. Spend $100+ on an overclocked 780G mobo and add in a 3450 to add in more heat/increase power draw all for nothing then, yeah, sure. He could spend the money and add in the card for no benefit.
 
CrimandEvil said:
This has been gone over in many other threads. Cliffs: it's old and can't do things like 7.1 LCPM audio which is nice for things like Blu ray audio.
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Add proper 1080p24 support to the list of what the 8200 can do that the 780G can't.
 
CrimandEvil said:
Yes. Spend $100+ on an overclocked 780G mobo and add in a 3450 to add in more heat/increase power draw all for nothing then, yeah, sure. He could spend the money and add in the card for no benefit.
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Yeah, double the stream processors, 70% better video performance, LPCM 7.1 audio support, extreme overclocking performance, better RAID support, that's no benefit
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3411
 
gigaxtreme1 said:
Yeah, double the stream processors, 70% better video performance, LPCM 7.1 audio support, extreme overclocking performance, better RAID support, that's no benefit
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What does any of that benefit an HTPC? Enthusiast PC sure, it's great, but HTPCs are usually left on 24/7 so overclocking adds the possibility of instability and more likely to cause issues in summer heat waves. Plus, adding a discrete card to a motherboard that already has decent on-board video, at least that's capable of 1024p, seems like a waste.
 
I was thinking of more future proof for AM3, so for the OP's uses it probably is a waste except for RAID support. He already has the card.
 
gigaxtreme1 said:
I was thinking of more future proof for AM3, so for the OP's uses it probably is a waste except for RAID support. He already has the card.
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The Asus 8300 board is AM3 compatible and the Hybrid crossfire only works under Windows ME-2 (Vista) so if he has XP Pro or MCE 2005 he will be disabling a IGP that is better then the card he is going to put in.
 
scoobert said:
The Asus 8300 board is AM3 compatible and the Hybrid crossfire only works under Windows ME-2 (Vista) so if he has XP Pro or MCE 2005 he will be disabling a IGP that is better then the card he is going to put in.
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Avivo isn't supported for crossfire; it works but adding in the card doesn't magically make it faster or anything. It will be as fast as the IGP with or without the 3450 crossfired to it.
And even then you still don't get LPCM 7.1 audio support bacause ATI simply does not support it in their chipsets and the 3450 only does up 5.1 DTS! :rolleyes:
 
CrimandEvil said:
Avivo isn't supported for crossfire; it works but adding in the card doesn't magically make it faster or anything. It will be as fast as the IGP with or without the 3450 crossfired to it.
And even then you still don't get LPCM 7.1 audio support bacause ATI simply does not support it in their chipsets and the 3450 only does up 5.1 DTS! :rolleyes:
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excuse me for feeding the troll, but not everyone needs 7.1 for their htpc.

im using an asus 780g and it works great for what i need.
 
outspoken said:
excuse me for feeding the troll, but not everyone needs 7.1 for their htpc.

im using an asus 780g and it works great for what i need.
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I dont think he is being a troll at all. Its nice that your 780G does what you need it for. But if buying a new mobo right now it would not make sense to buy (or recommend) the 780g(x) over the 8200 when it does less and cost more.
 
scoobert said:
I dont think he is being a troll at all. Its nice that your 780G does what you need it for. But if buying a new mobo right now it would not make sense to buy (or recommend) the 780g(x) over the 8200 when it does less and cost more.
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QFT. Yes the 780G is a decent chipset for HTPCs. In fact many of us were recommending 780G mobos up until the release of the Nvidia 8200 and 8300 chipsets. However considering that many 8200 and 8300 chipsets cost around the same or less than 780G mobos yet provide better audio support, it does not make sense to buy a 780G mobo nowadays.
 
I've been reading around and the 8200/8300 chipsets don't seem to be very good overclockers, which I'm going to need. I want to bring a 4850e to around 2.8 or maybe 3.0 to make sure it'll play 1080p smoothly.
 
outspoken said:
excuse me for feeding the troll, but not everyone needs 7.1 for their htpc.

im using an asus 780g and it works great for what i need.
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If you have a 780G lying around and you don't need the features it doesn't support, then by all means. But if you're buying new, I just think it's wiser to get something more feature packed to begin with. What if in the future you decide you want a surround sound system or you get a 120Hz capable HDTV?
 
haffey said:
I've been reading around and the 8200/8300 chipsets don't seem to be very good overclockers, which I'm going to need. I want to bring a 4850e to around 2.8 or maybe 3.0 to make sure it'll play 1080p smoothly.
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I am sure other experts will chime in on this. But from I have seen in my VERY LITTLE time playing with my htpc is that playing a blue ray on ether of my tv's (720p plasma and 1080p lcd) is that it takes very little processing power. Granted I am running a 9950BE (only because its what i had laying around) but it hardly ever gets over 10% running on a 8300 chipset.
 
scoobert said:
I am sure other experts will chime in on this. But from I have seen in my VERY LITTLE time playing with my htpc is that playing a blue ray on ether of my tv's (720p plasma and 1080p lcd) is that it takes very little processing power. Granted I am running a 9950BE (only because its what i had laying around) but it hardly ever gets over 10% running on a 8300 chipset.
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Blu Ray will be decoded in hardware completely and with a decent dual core (like a 2Ghz CPU) it won't be higher then about 30% usage at the most (mostly from overhead from the encryption of the disc).
 
I've built 2 systems off the 780g, one being my own rig, and yet I'd still point future purchasers towards the 8200. When I built my first one the 8200 didn't exist. The second one the price was a good bit higher and they were still fighting driver issues. Now there's just no reason to advise it, unless you can get the 780g for some rediculous special price. 7.1 will only become more and more common, not less.
 
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