MicroATX motherboard and onboard video

[gazoo]

I've got an older Gigabyte 780G board and an ASUS 780G. They both look fine but the Gigabyte gave me less trouble. Once I gave up on the hardware acceleration pipe dream and went to software, they all looked great and problems were less frequent.

[imagn]

I've got an older Gigabyte 780G board and an ASUS 780G. They both look fine but the Gigabyte gave me less trouble. Once I gave up on the hardware acceleration pipe dream and went to software, they all looked great and problems were less frequent.

I see in your How To thread you mention getting the latest AVIVO ATI mpeg decoder, where does one find this my Motherboard has shipped today so i will have it hopefully tomorrow, newegg has been good about shipping to my house

[gazoo]

I see in your How To thread you mention getting the latest AVIVO ATI mpeg decoder, where does one find this my Motherboard has shipped today so i will have it hopefully tomorrow, newegg has been good about shipping to my house

Yeah, it says that but what it doesn't say is that none of the HA panned out in the end and I gave up and went completely software. AVIVO was working ok, but it didn't seem to to HA...it does look good though.

[drugstore_cowboy]

I need to update my rig since my motherboard died. I was looking at the 780/790 boards but with the driver issues they were having I started looking at other alternatives. You may want to look at the nvidia chipset boards like this one: Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H.

I understand this is more expensive than the other boards listed and one is also forced to use a more expensive Intel chip instead of an AMD. I'm really curious to see what others think of this matched with a dual core and if they think the extra cost is worth while. I'm thinking this'll be really good for HD content and should be an easy setup with drivers and HA (hopefully).

[imagn]

In intial testing the bwlow Motherboard paired with a am2 5600 is working well for me:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813138140

I have this hooked up via HDMI after intial configuration all is working well. I used Win Xp sp3 for my OS not sure if Vista would be better, i plan on testing this out for a while a will post more, i dont have any 1080p material, as i dont have a 1080p tv but it anyone has any Hi res links for testing i would like to see the video cards capabilities, right now its handled all my .ts HD recordings easily

[gazoo]

IMAGN, glad it worked out for you. If you want to stress test it, download this here (http://tinyurl.com/KillaSampla) I don't know if that link works or not since I'm at work and it's blocking it, but it should be the "killasampla.mkv" 1080p bird stress test. It's a 20 sec or so scene from a 1080p movie with like 1000 birds. My 780g just barely handles it in software (i.e. in the dual core CPU), but it does handle it. You will have to have .mkv and H.264 capabilities which should come from Klite megapak or fourcc. Oh, it's supposedly "badly encoded" so HA doesn't work - but it should display it fine and handle it in CPU.

drugstore_cowboy, I think nowadays you have to try hard NOT to get a dual core. It's also much easier to stick with AMD since they are significantly cheaper. True that Intel chips are better when you do a side by side, but you don't really need much more power than what the AMDs will give you. If you are going with that board, just stick to the lowest end dual core you can get - maybe even pentium D or coreduo (vs core2duo), but others may have better advice.

Now if you're going to have 3 HD tuners going at once with Comskip and using comtool to compress all the time etc, then a better dual core is indicated.

just my 2 cents..

[mikiem]

FWIW AMD Gigabyte boards have had quite a few problems with the MOSFETs, as in melting or even catching fire... it took about a week for me to get the burnt smell out of the room. :mad: Adding insult, while they were cool about issuing an RMA, screwups at their tech center meant it took about 2 months to get a working replacement from them -- actually sent the same inop replacement twice!!! Check cust reviews at the Egg RE Gigabyte flammable characteristics. I was using original, base Phenom stock as that chip won't really O/C.

Biostar makes a nice board -- go to the Rebels Haven site for modded bios -- but their tech's are at least as messed up... While waiting for the Gigabyte folks to get me something usable, I picked up a Biostar. That board turned out to eat CMOS batteries. Paperwork said they replaced the board, but they sent the same one back. They were nice about returning it, but when called a couple of weeks later, they had lost it! Had to give them tracking number to show they received it, & haven't heard anything back since.

ATI on-board graphics can be OK, but have read of people having lots of problems with older style. If you go for separate card, check out posts re: heat concerns before buying one of the 4XXX series. Some can run incredibly hot, which could be a problem in some HTPC cases. As it is, the N/B with the graphics can run pretty darn hot itself -- if it doesn't come with a fan, consider adding one.