[soder]

Im planning on building a HTPC with the following components:

ANTEC HTPC NSK2480 MATX SILVER 380W
CORSAIR 2GB DDR2 XMS2 PC6400 CL5 (2X1GB)
PALIT GEFORCE 9400GT SUPER+ 1GB DDR2 PCI-E VGA/DVI/HDMI SILENT
AMD ATHLON 64 X2 5050E 2.6 GHZ SOCKET AM2 BOXED 45W

I've already got a similar HTPC with a AMD 4850 and a GIGABYTE MA78GM-S2H

But this time I want another motherboard. Can someone please help me pick a motherboard from this page?

http://www.dustinhome.se/lp_6161_2001.aspx

It needs to have at least 4 SATA ports, but 5 or 6 is better.
I want the LAN and AUDIO and stuff like that to work well in Ubuntu. I know that the motherboard I already have has some bugs, and I want to avoid problems like that....

Thanks for all the help..

/Söder

[Haggy]

My ASUS M3N78-EM (http://www.dustinhome.se/pd_5010197666.aspx) works great with linux and xbmc. It's only bout 60 € so i doubt there's a better bang for the buck than this.

EDIT: You don't need a seperate GFX card if all you want is VDPAU and 1080p with xbmc on this board.

[soder]

My ASUS M3N78-EM (http://www.dustinhome.se/pd_5010197666.aspx) works great with linux and xbmc. It's only bout 60 € so i doubt there's a better bang for the buck than this.

EDIT: You don't need a seperate GFX card if all you want is VDPAU and 1080p with xbmc on this board.

But, Ive read that the 8000-serie isnt as good as the 9000?

/Söder

[Haggy]

Sure it isn't. It depends on what you want to do: For a dedicated HTPC using VDPAU and XBMC it's enough to play all 1080p i ever tried. If you're into gaming you'd better go for a seperate GPU (though the 9400 does not make THAT difference in gaming). Point is much lower power consumption and heat, thus less noise if you go for a onboard GPU. Another option would be an ION if you don't need the CPU power.

[soder]

Sure it isn't. It depends on what you want to do: For a dedicated HTPC using VDPAU and XBMC it's enough to play all 1080p i ever tried. If you're into gaming you'd better go for a seperate GPU (though the 9400 does not make THAT difference in gaming). Point is much lower power consumption and heat, thus less noise if you go for a onboard GPU. Another option would be an ION if you don't need the CPU power.

Well, the ION was an option, but since I will have 4 hdd's, theres no need for a small piece like an ION.

And for noise, the 9400-card I'm planning to buy, is with passive cooling...

I will use this for gaming, ONLY as server and XBMC.

I will also only play .mkv's in x264, but I think I've read that the developer that fixed the VDPAU for XBMC said that a card from the 9000-serie was better then the 8000?

Or am I wrong?

/Söder

[Haggy]

It's faster sure - but again: you simply don't need the extra power for your needs. With more noise i meant mainly more heat to get out of the case. So even a passively cooled card will result in your fans spinning faster, thus more noise and more power consumption.

My rig has 4850e on that M3N78-EM. it sucks less than 50 watts while watching 1080p h264 and is practically noiseless due to only one fan running at low speed.

EDIT: There was a bugfix recently in xbmc that finally made a huge performance improvement especially for the slower 8xxx and 9xxx IGPs. Since then i never came upon anything that didn't run smooth as butter on that 8300.

[soder]

It's faster sure - but again: you simply don't need the extra power for your needs. With more noise i meant mainly more heat to get out of the case. So even a passively cooled card will result in your fans spinning faster, thus more noise and more power consumption.

My rig has 4850e on that M3N78-EM. it sucks less than 50 watts while watching 1080p h264 and is practically noiseless due to only one fan running at low speed.

Ok, will go for that. I can get the passive 9400 later if I need it. =)

Damned that I didnt bought this motherboard my self, instead of the motherboard with a shitty ATI-card. =)

/Söder

[Haggy]

Sure, upgrade as needed. If you want to have a deeper look at my rig:
http://forum.silenthardware.de/index.php...opic=34761 (unfortunately in german)

[soder]

Sure, upgrade as needed. If you want to have a deeper look at my rig:
http://forum.silenthardware.de/index.php...opic=34761 (unfortunately in german)

This is the final list!

ARCTIC SILVER 5

ASUS TRITON 75 S-775/754/939/AM2/AM2+ FANLESS

ASUS M3N78-EM GEFORCE 8300 AM2+ M-ATX

AMD ATHLON 64 X2 5050E 2.6 GHZ SOCKET AM2 BOXED

NEXUS DOUBLETWIN

FRACTAL DESIGN SILENT SERIES 120MM 15DB RETAIL

CORSAIR 2GB DDR2 XMS2 PC6400 CL5 (2X1GB)

ANTEC HTPC NSK2480 MATX SILVER 380W

Already got hdd's

/Söder

[motd2k]

Another advantage of the integrated GPUs is lossless PCM over HDMI, which is getting closer to being a functional reality on Linux.

[soder]

Another advantage of the integrated GPUs is lossless PCM over HDMI, which is getting closer to being a functional reality on Linux.

Hello! =) Wasnt it you that told me to pick a card from the 9000 serie instead of the 8000 serie?

Thanks for the info about the PCM over HDMI info...

/Söder

EDIT: Here is the link!
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=48316

[sparkyhall]

Can someone confirm that you can allocate 512MB of RAM for the iGP please as the manual I downloaded for the M3N78-EM states only 256MB.

Thanks in advance,

Chris

[Haggy]

Confirmed.

[soder]

Confirmed.

I only bought 2x1 GB sticks for this motherboard. Is that enough?

/Söder

[uncertainty]

I only bought 2x1 GB sticks for this motherboard. Is that enough?

/Söder

I have an AMD X2 4800+ and 2GB works fine for me running with the latest AEON skin....