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Choosing between 780g/8200/G45

post #1 of 9
8/15/08 at 2:50pm
Thread Starter 
I'm looking at the HTPC options for my needs -

- no gaming
- 5.1 home theater, tv and receiver don't have HDMI, will use DVI+SPDIF. Plans to upgrade next year.
- uATX board, low power and noise
- no tv tuners

I've done a lot of reading here and this is what I've come up with. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

780g/790g
Do not support 7.1 HD audio. Other than this they are excellent.
Best IGP and best HA

G45
Repeater problem - don't care since I'll use AnyDvd
24p - sounds more serious. Is that something likely to get fixed in drivers?
HA - only in TMT, does not work with MPC-HC
may get bitstreaming

8200/8300
old tech, runs a bit hot
Not as stable or reliable, and no Intel support
may get bitstreaming


All 3 are with $100 of each other in terms of cost. I'm having a hard time deciding. I'd go with a 780g (or 790g if they have uAtx) but it will not be future proof at all. All this bad press about G45 doesn't bother me but I am concerned if the board will get good support (from Intel or 3rd party).
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post #2 of 9
8/15/08 at 3:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defcon View Post

I'm looking at the HTPC options for my needs -

- no gaming
- 5.1 home theater, tv and receiver don't have HDMI, will use DVI+SPDIF. Plans to upgrade next year.
- uATX board, low power and noise
- no tv tuners

I've done a lot of reading here and this is what I've come up with. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

780g/790g
Do not support 7.1 HD audio. Other than this they are excellent.
Best IGP and best HA

G45
Repeater problem - don't care since I'll use AnyDvd
24p - sounds more serious. Is that something likely to get fixed in drivers?
HA - only in TMT, does not work with MPC-HC
may get bitstreaming

8200/8300
old tech, runs a bit hot
Not as stable or reliable, and no Intel support
may get bitstreaming


All 3 are with $100 of each other in terms of cost. I'm having a hard time deciding. I'd go with a 780g (or 790g if they have uAtx) but it will not be future proof at all. All this bad press about G45 doesn't bother me but I am concerned if the board will get good support (from Intel or 3rd party).

I'm assuming "780g ...will not be future proof at all" is a reference to lack of multi-channel LPCM over HDMI, is that correct?

Or is it a reference to something else?
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post #3 of 9
8/15/08 at 4:35pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

I'm assuming "780g ...will not be future proof at all" is a reference to lack of multi-channel LPCM over HDMI, is that correct?

Yes.
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post #4 of 9
8/15/08 at 5:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defcon View Post

I'm looking at the HTPC options for my needs -

- no gaming
- 5.1 home theater, tv and receiver don't have HDMI, will use DVI+SPDIF. Plans to upgrade next year.
- uATX board, low power and noise
- no tv tuners

I've done a lot of reading here and this is what I've come up with. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

780g/790g
Do not support 7.1 HD audio. Other than this they are excellent.
Best IGP and best HA

G45
Repeater problem - don't care since I'll use AnyDvd
24p - sounds more serious. Is that something likely to get fixed in drivers?
HA - only in TMT, does not work with MPC-HC
may get bitstreaming

8200/8300
old tech, runs a bit hot
Not as stable or reliable, and no Intel support
may get bitstreaming


All 3 are with $100 of each other in terms of cost. I'm having a hard time deciding. I'd go with a 780g (or 790g if they have uAtx) but it will not be future proof at all. All this bad press about G45 doesn't bother me but I am concerned if the board will get good support (from Intel or 3rd party).

I'd go with Intel G33+ATI HD 2600XT. G33 like ASUS PK-5VM has coax s/pdif that works well for me.
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post #5 of 9
8/15/08 at 5:39pm
All I can say is that I use a Biostar TF8200 A2+, running at 1920x1080p to my display and get <10% CPU usage on 1080p MKVs. I will get a Blu-Ray drive next week and will be able to post results then, but I expect no troubles.
I'm running it with a X2 4850e and 2GB of RAM.
The update to drivers 177.xx solved all the little hicups I had.
I was debating between it and a 780g, but ultimately the 7.1 LPCM support tipped me over to Nvidia for future use.

CFC
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post #6 of 9
8/15/08 at 5:55pm
Thread Starter 
That Biostar looks like a good board but its not uATX so it won't fit in the HTPC case I plan to use (Antec NSK2480).
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post #7 of 9
8/15/08 at 6:12pm
Sounds like the same position I was in, except I have a HDMI capable receiver. I went with:

Abit A-N78HD (uATX 8200 board)
AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition
Scythe Ninja Mini
Antec NSK2480
other misc stuff, ram, harddrive etc

Runs Blu-Ray at ~30-40% usage with the 5000+ @ 3.0 GHz running fanless on the Ninja Mini. I just use the case fans on low speed with the Antec NSK2480.

The overclocking really isn't needed for Blu-ray/HD-dvd but it helps to apply processing to SD material.

If you plan to upgrade your receiver I would get a 8200. I would recommend the Abit since I had no trouble with mine and it seems to have the least amount of complaints on the official thread.
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post #8 of 9
8/15/08 at 6:27pm
I second the 8200 mobo. Performance wise my mATX Gigabyte has been great. The onboard Lan pulls 84MB/s steady on 8GB file from my WHS. I have full case so I overclocked on default volts ( except ram) a Phenom X3, but any X2 2.2Ghz or higher is plenty.

Only catch is Drivers, 177.xx is a minimum for video. and there is no WHS(Server 2003) drivers for restoring PC with onboard Nvidia lan. I had to install another lan card that had 2003 drivers to restore PC on a booboo I made from the WHS backup.
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post #9 of 9
8/15/08 at 6:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defcon View Post

That Biostar looks like a good board but its not uATX so it won't fit in the HTPC case I plan to use (Antec NSK2480).

If you're referring to the 790GX Biostar, Newegg is running nicely discounted CPU+ MB bundles. According to a Biostar rep on another forum, the bundles are sales promotions: they are not purging "old" stock.

I like the Biostar due to the low cost and my application for it will use the 2.1 analog out so the HDMI audio is a don't care.

I'm assuming other people have posted this "Intel" G45 blog link, but here it is again:

http://softwareblogs.intel.com/2008/...ill-imperfect/

It would be nice if AMD could afford (or have the marketing savvy) to do similar blog stuff.
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