For HTPC- Intel or AMD?

mirco · Post by **mirco** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 2:58 am

Hi everyone!

I have a big doubt. What to choose...is there any with some experience about building these comp type, and which mATX motherboard fits best with each proc? With HDMI of course...

Thank you in forward!

juamez · Post by **juamez** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:04 am

If cost matters anything, I would surely recommend you to go AMD.

780G (AMD, not nVidia) based micro atx mobo with HDMI, AthlonX2 4850e (or lower) 45W, for a total price of $150 or â‚¬125 if you're lucky. Such a low price is certainly not possible with Intel. Also: the 780G chipset has the best Bluray hardware acceleration on its power efficient integrated graphics processor.

Infact: feature-wise, AMD is still the only option. Power usage-wise may be the advantage of Intel, but that's about it for Intel.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:43 am

AMD X2 4850e + GeForce 8300 board is impressive too. 780G is very fine choice aswell. HD 3200 is able even to run older games.

Michael Sandstrom · Post by **Michael Sandstrom** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 4:02 am

The 780G chipset has been surpassed by the new 790GX examples of which SPCR has in the lab now. Wait for the review here.

mirco · Post by **mirco** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 4:31 am

Thank you very much guys!

I will wait a bit...

juamez · Post by **juamez** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 4:36 am

Michael Sandstrom wrote:The 780G chipset has been surpassed by the new 790GX examples of which SPCR has in the lab now. Wait for the review here.

The cost advantage AMD has to Intel is gone with the more expensive 790GX based boards. I've already read a review on techreport and they state that the 790GX is not a (big) improvement coming from the 780G. Featureset is (about) the same, only IGP performance is a tad better. But remember the extra cost, is it worth it?

Nighthog · Post by **Nighthog** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 4:49 am

The gigabyte 780G board does seem to have quite the load of driver problems at the moment... Mostly thinking off the AVSforums official Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H thread. 100+ pages. The board itself is great but the software to make use off the features ain't all that great.

krille · Post by **krille** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:09 am

Do you need 8 channel LPCM and/or bitstreaming?

If you do, you can forget about 780G. Then you're "limited" to G45, 790GX and 8x00. And if I have understood things correctly, far from every board featuring these chipsets will ever support this. I think it requires PAP (protected audio path). Lots of users over at AVSForum is having lots of trouble with the 8x00 boards in general, so it's probably not recommended at this point.

If you don't need 7.1 LPCM and/or bitstreaming, any chipset should do. But you should still avoid the 8x00 chipsets as they seem very troublesome. There are definite indications of 780G (790GX shouldn't be worse) coupled with a Phenom having better Image Quality than G45. So the best bet in that case would probably be 780G/790GX + low-power phenom.

Have a look over here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdis ... forumid=26

edit: Check out this article over at ExtremeTech: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2 ... 143,00.asp

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 6:24 am

krille wrote:Do you need 8 channel LPCM and/or bitstreaming?

If you do, you can forget about 780G. Then you're "limited" to G45, 790GX and 8x00. And if I have understood things correctly, far from every board featuring these chipsets will ever support this. I think it requires PAP (protected audio path). Lots of users over at AVSForum is having lots of trouble with the 8x00 boards in general, so it's probably not recommended at this point.

If you don't need 7.1 LPCM and/or bitstreaming, any chipset should do. But you should still avoid the 8x00 chipsets as they seem very troublesome. There are definite indications of 780G (790GX shouldn't be worse) coupled with a Phenom having better Image Quality than G45. So the best bet in that case would probably be 780G/790GX + low-power phenom.

Have a look over here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdis ... forumid=26

edit: Check out this article over at ExtremeTech: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2 ... 143,00.asp

I wonder if much of this isn't more your opinion than anything else. I have had no significant issues with Biostar 8200 and few others have. "Lots of users having lots of trouble in general"? I wouldn't say so. Remember there is usually some trouble with new chipsets. Just peruse the Newegg reviews (for what they are worth) and compare with 780G. I had much more trouble with 690G.

"If you don't need 7.1" - to parahrase Harry Pearson, most people have difficulty buying and correctly setting up quality 5.1 so how is 7.1 going to help. And I agree as I use high quality 2.1. No chipset is doing LPCM so you have to buy for today.

"definite indications of 780G (790GX shouldn't be worse) coupled with a Phenom having better Image Quality than G45" That may be true about Intel, but image quality can be a subjective thing and some prefer Nvidia images.
some have different perceptions and it is difficult to expect someone to have first hand experience with all chipsets.

mirco · Post by **mirco** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:27 am

Only I want is to have easy HD streaming with chipset that is reliable and proven good. Silent unit of course...

I tried to put on the screen something, any advice or comment would be much valuable.

_______________
CPU AMD Athlon64 X2 4850E BOX, s. AM2, Brisbane, 2.5GHz, 1MB c, HTT 1000MHz
_______________
Scythe Mini Ninja Heatpipe CPU Cooler S478/LAG775, AMD S754/939/940/AM2
_______________
MB Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H, sAM2, AMD 780G, VGA, SATA II, HDMI, GLAN, FW, mATX
_______________
Seagate 640GB, SATA300, 7200rpm, 32MB cache HDD Seagate 640GB, Serial
ATA II, 7200 rpm, Barracuda 7200.11, ST3640323AS, 32MB cache,
_______________
Kingmax 1GB, DDR2, 800MHz Memory DDR2 800MHz 1GB KINGMAX Mars
_______________
DVD writer, DVDÂ±RW & DVDÂ±R, PIONEER DVR-215BK, SATA, DVD Ram 20x, 8x
dual layer 8.5 GB, bulk, crni
_______________
Case Antec NSK2480, Desktop tower, mATX, 5,25" vanjski utor 2, 3,5"
unutarnji utor 2, USB 2, Napajanje 380 W, HlaÄ‘enje 2 boÄ

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 8:44 am

thejamppa wrote:AMD X2 4850e + GeForce 8300 board is impressive too. 780G is very fine choice aswell. HD 3200 is able even to run older games.

I play Team Fortress 2 all the time on my $40 690G motherboard. I can't see buying a 8200/8300/780G/790GX motherboard when a PCIe 7300GT can be had for $17 or $40 for a 8600GT or $80 for a HD 3850.

For 780G/790GX the extra sideport memory is really need to be at all comparable to a cheap 7300GT, and the motherboards with this are not at all cheap.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 8:49 am

QuietOC wrote:
thejamppa wrote:AMD X2 4850e + GeForce 8300 board is impressive too. 780G is very fine choice aswell. HD 3200 is able even to run older games.
I play Team Fortress 2 all the time on my $40 690G motherboard. I can't see buying a 8200/8300/780G/790GX motherboard when a PCIe 7300GT can be had for $17 or $40 for a 8600GT or $80 for a HD 3850.

I can, since IGP always consumes less power than discrete card. Besides what I play in mainrig are limited to Civ 2, Ragnarok Online, Ceasar III and other old city simulations by Impression games.

Rest will be played with my game rig. Of course where you live also affects. In here you pay hardware + 22% Vat

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 8:57 am

thejamppa wrote:I can, since IGP always consumes less power than discrete card. Besides what I play in mainrig are limited to Civ 2, Ragnarok Online, Ceasar III and other old city simulations by Impression games.

From what I have seen the 780G/790GX consumes the same power as a HD 2400/3450. They are the same GPU after all, just in a different location.

The 690G is lower power, but it is only 4 shaders. not the 8 pipes x 5 ALUs of the lowest end HDs.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 6:40 am

QuietOC wrote:I can't see buying a 8200/8300/780G/790GX motherboard when a PCIe 7300GT can be had for $17 or $40 for a 8600GT or $80 for a HD 3850.

For 780G/790GX the extra sideport memory is really need to be at all comparable to a cheap 7300GT, and the motherboards with this are not at all cheap.

I need to retract what I said above. I bought a Foxconn 780G motherboard and it works quite well. It is roughly equivalent to the DDR2 7300GT with a 3.2 GHz Pentium Dual Core E2140 playing Team Fortress 2. Actually the 7300GT system has worse minimum frame rates regardless of resolution. The slow 333 MHz PC2-5300 on the 7300GT is likely killing its performance. Both systems run fast (>50 fps) at 800x600 no AA. With a little reduction in quality both can handle 1024x768 no AA okay (>30 fps.)

The 780G improves greatly with overclocked HT speeds (tried 1200MHz). I can also overclock the 780G from 500 to 750 MHz in BIOS, but the faster HT speed improves performance more, and both together are not stable. The Foxconn like most 780G boards has a very short heatsink, which probably holds the overclocking back. It seems 1GHz is quite achievable on the 780G. I also haven't been successful at running a 300MHz HT clock with a 5x multiplier (my "ancient" TForce 6100 S754 could achieve this.)

The 780G is better than the $17 7300GT--certainly if it has Sideport and/or a Phenom.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:10 am

@mirco: the part list you wrote above is OK, but I have some suggestions:
- use the 80 mm (about 2,300 rpm at 12V AFAIK) fan that comes with the Mini Ninja to swap the fan in the PSU, which is noisy (3,000 rpm at 12V).
- get a quality 1,500 rpm 92 mm fan (Nexus maybe) for the Mini Ninja instead, have it temperature controlled (BIOS or other software).
- get 2x1 GB DDR2 800, only 1 GB is not future-proof, considering how cheap memory is today.
- don't get the Seagate, they can't set AAM to 128, which means you'll be stuck with sharp seeks, get a 640 GB WD GP (for quietness) or AAKS (for speed) instead.
- in case you aren't comfortable with high chipset temperatures, get a Thermalright HR-05 IFX for it.
- almost forgot: ditch the Antec case fans and use two 120 mm 500 rpm Scythe Slipstream fans instead.

jacky912 · Post by **jacky912** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:11 pm

QuietOC wrote:
thejamppa wrote:I can, since IGP always consumes less power than discrete card. Besides what I play in mainrig are limited to Civ 2, Ragnarok Online, Ceasar III and other old city simulations by Impression games.
From what I have seen the 780G/790GX consumes the same power as a HD 2400/3450. They are the same GPU after all, just in a different location.

The 690G is lower power, but it is only 4 shaders. not the 8 pipes x 5 ALUs of the lowest end HDs.

ready??? I heard that IGP uses less power than card...
Can someone from SPCR tell us more?

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:09 pm

I can't advise you on what features you need for a HTPC, but I do have some experience with an AMD 4050e CPU and AMD 690G chipset. The CPU idles at about 24-25 C, which is an astounding 2-3 C over ambient room temperature (not internal case temp), albiet with an Xmegatek S1283 HS, but with no fan on the HS (I do have a top case fan running on low speed a few inches away from the HS). The chipset temp runs about 34 C at idle.

I have heard that the speedier 4450e and 4850e CPU's probably generate about the same amount of heat (If I had it to do over, I might have got the the 4850e, but the 4050e is plenty fast for my needs). The price of these CPU's is very low, although the AMD mb's may be about the same price as the Intel ones.

For HTPC- Intel or AMD?

For HTPC- Intel or AMD?

780G better than 7300GT?