HTPC: AMD 690G board recomendations

Operandi · Post by **Operandi** » Mon May 28, 2007 5:40 pm

I'm looking for a solid AMD 690G based board with HDMI for use in an HTPC environment.

Besides the prerequisite HDMI output, good fan control options and just all around general quality are the important factors.

Currently I'm looking at the Biostar TA690G and Asus M2A-VM HDMI.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138057
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131174

Thoughts?

noee · Post by **noee** » Tue May 29, 2007 4:09 am

I've got the Biostar currently, search around and you'll find some of my comments regarding cooling, undervolting, overclocking, etc.

The layout of this board is great and it matches well with the NSK2400. The latest BIOS (0516) fixes the memory timings issues as well as some other issues related to CnQ I believe.

I still have a BIOS problem with resume from S3 when undervolted, but it's not a big problem, hopefully they'll repro and fix it in a future BIOS release. My board also reports that the first two I/O channels are fixed in PIO mode, I'm not sure why. I can't get them into UDMA mode with or without a device attached.

Keep in mind, with this board, you can only use one digital output at a time, either DVI or HDMI, not both at the same time. Same goes for the analog outs, either the S-video or the d-sub, not both simultaneously.

However, you can run one digital and one analog out simultaneously and supposedly with another ATI Video card, you can used SurroundView to run 4 monitors, fwiw.

Operandi · Post by **Operandi** » Wed May 30, 2007 8:48 am

After looking around a bit more I've come across the Sapphire HDMI PI-AM2RS690MHD, which looks like a very interesting board.

Better features then the Asus and Biostar, which is a plus. Though it looks like the Biostar may be built a bit better with the use of solid caps around the CPU.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed May 30, 2007 8:56 am

ew. in the world of solid caps, I didnt think a high end manufacturer would be using big thumper blackies still. that's odd.

Of course, my old boards from 10 years ago still work, and they are beefy capacitor based. still, youd think the sapphire would be full bling.

.... I just looked at it.... wow... what a sexy board

that's the one I woud be aiming at. the others are less expensive.

What I love about the new ati 690g chipset is the large requirement that amd has for features. they are better than full atx boards, and the lay out actually fits MORE expansion cards for someone like me. odd but true. intelligent design.

The only problem I have with this board is the choice of HDMI vs dvi built in. You can easily change from one to the other though, so really its not a big deal. It just adds cost. the other dvi card add in is unecessary actually if you get a hdmi-dvi adaptor I would think. A waste of an expansion is not good for someone like myself.

Operandi · Post by **Operandi** » Wed May 30, 2007 6:25 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:ew. in the world of solid caps, I didnt think a high end manufacturer would be using big thumper blackies still. that's odd.

Well electrolytes are fine (and actually have a few advantages over solid caps) as long as they are high quality quality. People see solid caps and associate them with quality which is true but only because of the cheap crap low-end manufactures tried to put on their boards to save a few $$.

The Sapphire board is using Teapo (SP?) which isn't quite in the same league as say Rubycon or Panasonic but should be fine.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:17 pm

I never looked at the rating of caps. interesting info!

Operandi · Post by **Operandi** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 7:24 am

I'm not sure what the deal is but it looks like nobody has any stock of the Sapphire HDMI PI-AM2RS690MHD. I called a couple of places and it doesn't sound like they'll be getting them back in either.

So it's either the Biostar or skip the 690 all together.

Titus · Post by **Titus** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 9:15 am

You may want to consider Biostar's nVidia 7050/630i based board. Same price range and similar performance, according to vrzone.

Operandi · Post by **Operandi** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 8:57 am

If I had known they existed I would have checked out the nVidia 7050 boards, oh well

.

In the end I went with the Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H, full ATX AMD 690 board. It seems pretty solid and has the features I need/want, hopefully all goes well.

derekva · Post by **derekva** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 12:30 pm

...Sapphire board...unfortunately you lose both DVI and SP/DIF (you still have HDMI, though):

SAPPHIRE PE-AM2RS690MH

However, it is only $70.00.

-D

Operandi · Post by **Operandi** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 4:14 pm

derekva wrote:...Sapphire board...unfortunately you lose both DVI and SP/DIF (you still have HDMI, though):

SAPPHIRE PE-AM2RS690MH

However, it is only $70.00.

-D

Also no 1394 which is a requirement for me.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:34 pm

One version of the Asus has one I think. one of them on newegg has a firewire, serial, parallel and dvi out. thats the best of all worlds.

HTPC: AMD 690G board recomendations

HTPC: AMD 690G board recomendations

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