MSI 7411 Motherboard Sneak Peek (share your thoughts!) - Page 4

wow this looks very promising! looks like ill be ditching my asus p5e for this!

Do you happen to have an e-mail address for their sales group? All I saw on the web site was phone numbers and physical addresses for contact them.

... excluding the Technical Support e-mail contact (good lord that's a long form!) and the RMA request e-mail address.

No thanks, I will keep my existing tuners and get a board with more support. A good start though.

NVIDIA's site carries a page that shows MSI sales and marketing department email addresses: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_20020821_4710.html.

more support, eh?

Perhaps he is opposed to getting rid of a bunch of PCI tuners to get all PCIe tuners? Maybe?

Well I called Microstar at the link that Java Jack posted and was told they have no info on this boards' availability. When I mentioned that it was shown at CeBit, I was told to send an email to: andyt@msicomputer.com (apparently he's the product/project manager for the motherboard division) in order to get further information.

If anyone else is interested in this board, perhaps we ALL should send him an email demonstrating enthusiasm! Just an idea.

-PGPfan

Email sent to Andy.

Ughh... after seeing this, it occurs to me that I will, sooner rather then later, be building yet another media center... that will make 3 media centers.

I suppose I could add yet another Raid 5 card to the old MCE 2005 rig and just make it dedicated media server.

why would you choose this rather than gigabyte's 780G

Fancier audio solutions available using D2 Audio cards, onboard graphics memory which should/could allow the HD postprocessing w/o needing a phenom and make video better a little all around, larger selection of HD video outputs (i.e. component video is back). Those were the three that stood out to me.

Is MSI using better electronic parts (capacitors and such) than gigabyte?

nm...no PCI slots....haha I need to fit 1212m in there.

Well, the reply was this:

Thanks for contacting us.
MS-7411 will be a late Q2/ early Q3 product. We should be able to provide more info in MAY.

So we have a little waiting to do. It will give Dell time to get the Omaura TF-5 in stock by then.

-PGPfan

Well, caps are probably similar. GB is using solid state caps around processor power stages and a few other key place and regular caps on the rest for this board. MSI has some SS cap boards, but I am not sure what level the caps will be on this board. I would guess very similar. You seemed to have noticed the main thing that is killing this board for many people...only pcie slots (no pci). I wonder what made them decide to go that far? For an oem solution that would be fine, but for retail channel DIY it make sense to keep at least one pci around (IMO). I for one am fine with it. I have been strategically getting rid of my pci cards for 2+ years now and getting only pcie to replace them, if at all possible. BTW, anyone want a VBOX DTA 150 pci ATSC tuner or an ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI? JK, maybe

IMO this is a critical mistake on their part. I was seriously considering this MB even though I just bought a new one last month. However, I have two pci HDTV tuner cards and a PCI IDE controller card and there is no way I'm going to run out and buy two pci-e tuners and a bunch of sata converters. That would turn what should have been a simple $120 upgrade into an over $400 hit. I'm really bummed to say this, but no thanks

Is anybody but MSI planning to come out with a 780M board? With or without the D2 audio.

And am I correct that it takes the "M" chip to allow component output?

I am curious if with the 780M and sideport memory, whether the phenom is still required for video postprocessing as it is with the 780G. It would seem to make sense that if there is enough video memory connected directly and the HT3/HT2 bus is not in the way, it should be able to turn all of the video processing on w/o needing a HT3 processor. Just thought I would ask.

This will be the first HTPC I have ever built. I'm a little behind the PC audio curve, so I naturally have a couple of questions about this great looking board...

If I purchase this board I will be also purchasing the 5x100w add-on board. I am curious about playing hi-def content with this board. I understand that the onboard sound card is capable of passing an analog uncompressed 5.1 analog signal to the amp. Does this analog add-in board function properly with sound which passes along protected audio paths? Part of all this silly DRM and AACS nonsense was plugging the analog hole. Why would they leave such a great sounding path wide open for those scurvy pirates (ARRrrrrr!!!)? ;-)

What are the disadvantages (other than it not being a completely digital path) of this solution? Is the audio reencoded to DD or DTS before it is passed along to this board? Is there some sort of degradation to the sampling or bit rate for any reason (protected audio paths)?

Since I would be using the 5x100w add in board, I don't care about sending audio over HDMI. Is there any way I reclaim this unused bandwidth and open up some of the PCIe lanes not in use for HDMI audio to the 8x PCIe slot? It would be awesome to have this board running with a full 16x slot and 512MBs of side port memory for gaming purposes!

If you're using the HDMI port for just video since the Amp card handles all the audio, is it possible to reclaim some of that unused bandwidth and give it back to the 8x PCIe port (possibly making it a normal 12x port)?

IGPs need all the help they can get.

Well, I've been browsing for weeks and never posted, but looking to build my first ever HTPC. I really like the specs on this upcoming motherboard, but not sure if I need to wait for it.

I have an older HDTV (HDTV Ready) that only has component inputs, so I need a motherboard that has component out as I would like to skip having a separate video card. I want to be able to play HD stuff (1080i and eventually 1080p) including Blu-ray (down the road).

Should I wait for this to come out or are there some other options that would work just as well?

if your TV is older are you sure if can do 1080P?
the main appeal of this board is the audio side. although component out is nice also.

I don't know of any current motherboards with onboard video that can do component out. maybe their is a G35 based board that will.
hopefully some others here know more about it

Thanks for the reply! It is a Samsung CRT HDTV that does 1080i (or 720p upconverted) via component. I will likely purchased a new HDTV within the next 2 years and the hope is that it will be 1080p So if I can do 1080i now with the potential for 1080p in the future that would be the best solution for me.

I will try and see if I can find any that are G35 based like you mentioned. Thanks!