Intel Motherboard recommendation for E7200

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chinna_n
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Intel Motherboard recommendation for E7200

Post by chinna_n » Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:11 pm

I am looking for a good stable mother board for use with E7200 to make a low-power HTPC which can playback 1080P video/bluray etc.

I have following requirements.

1. Should support CPU undervolting......

2. Needs to have Gigabit Ethernet as all my PC at home are connected with Gigabit and transfer speed is important.

3. Onboard video which can handle 1080P Bluray with this CPU, preferbly HDMI, if not DVI is fine. ( This is to reduce idle power consumption only).

4. Good to have built in fire-wire to support my HDV camcorder.(Not a must, but good to have as I do not want waste precious PCI slot as it is required for Tuner( I have 1 usb and I pci ATSC tuners).

Bottom line, PC which can play 1080P Bluray, has GB Lan firewire, and HDMI interface with lowest possible idle power consumption.

I would not mind if I need to buy a Power efficient Video Card, but that should not make power consumption any worst.

I looked at GIGABYTE GA-EG45M-DS2H and ASUS P5Q-EM . But it seems those are not as power efficient MBs as I thought.

Any suggestions, ideas would be welcome about MB, but not about Processor. ( I have decided about E7200 for CPU).

For Video Card I have no reservations as long it can support 1080P HD Bluray etc and has HDMI( It is not a GAME machine) and power consumption is top priority.

Appreciate the help.

Thanks

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Post by jessekopelman » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:57 pm

Did you already get the E7200? Otherwise, just go with AMD. For power efficient HTPC this is the way to go. You'll save some money too, as you don't need all that much in the way of a CPU to playback 1080P using a board with NVidia 8200/8300 or AMD HD3200/3300 (aka 780/790G) IGP. If you get a 45W X2, you wouldn't really even need to worry about undervolting.

chinna_n
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Post by chinna_n » Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:55 pm

I am surprized no one pursued this combination.
I also want to have good encoding performance for Divx encoding in my BeyondTV setup.

For some reason I see some bias towards AMD here. If you see my signature my current HTPC is undervolted AMD X2 which draws around 78watts at outlet with 2HDDs at idle. I am aiming 40watts or less .

Anyways, if you look at E 7200 Power consumption it is in order of 20-25watts at full load and at idle it around 2-3 watts at default voltages. The review URL I checked is not handy right now.

Also check this post for E7200 system which only consumes around 37watts. But I am looking for something that can play 1080P Bluray.

viewtopic.php?p=424741&sid=8a4463be1da6 ... dc6b47000f

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Post by jessekopelman » Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:05 pm

It is not an unearned bias towards AMD for this specific application (HTPC). For a power efficient HTPC what you want is not the best CPU, but the best IGP. IGP with the proper codec support is far more efficient at playing 1080p than CPU. What the E7200 is to the AMD CPU, the 780G chipset is to most of Intels chipset offerings. The G45 can probably get the job done, but as you discovered their is not much MB selection just yet. If you want to build something right now, go AMD. If you wait a few months, the right Intel choice will likely have come along. Supposedly Nvidia will release a 9200 and/or 9300 chipset that will be just like the current 8200/8300 but support Intel CPU. If that actually comes out, it will undoubtedly be the most power efficient offering to pair with a E7200. May very well be some very good G45 offerings by then too . . .
Anyway, that E7200 system you are referencing can play Blu-Ray. It will just do all the decoding in the CPU (the E7200 has more than enough power) and use more energy than it would if the IGP had H264 support. I'm not sure why you think the G45 boards you looked at wouldn't be as good as something based on a G31. The G45 has a lower idle TDP than the G31, suggesting it should use less power at idle. Perhaps some fine tuning still needs to be done to the BIOS of the G45 boards -- usually takes several months after release for these things to stabilize.

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Post by MiKeLezZ » Sat Sep 06, 2008 1:01 am

P5Q-EM is your best bet. A pico-PSU will do the rest.

p.s. I'm going Intel, too.

croddie
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Post by croddie » Sat Sep 06, 2008 1:22 am

Try the DG45ID (microatx) or DG45FC (mini-itx).
Last edited by croddie on Sun Sep 07, 2008 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by frank2003 » Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:11 am

Just keep in mind that with the G45 Intel does not provide a driver for Windows XP that takes advantage the hardware acceleration for H264 and VC1 offered by this chip. So, if you are planning on running XP, then go with AMD 780G solution which has HA support for both XP and Vista.

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Post by chinna_n » Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:57 am

MiKeLezZ wrote:P5Q-EM is your best bet. A pico-PSU will do the rest.

p.s. I'm going Intel, too.
Yes, I already bought Dell 12V 200Watts power supply(DC Brick). I want to check MB, then based on that I want to decide which of those PICOs ( 120W or 200W) is appropriate. I am concerned esp during startup 2 HDD+this setup may overwhelm the 120W pico on 12V line.

P5Q-EM is definitely on the list, but I did not see clear power consumption figures for this board.

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Post by chinna_n » Sat Sep 06, 2008 7:02 am

croddie wrote:Try the DG45IF (microatx) or DG45ID (mini-itx).
I am not sure about the Undervolting ability of this MB.Do you have any links about the Undervolting support for this board?

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Post by thejamppa » Sat Sep 06, 2008 7:34 am

Intel CPU's are low powered and low power consumption... Unfortunately that is not true with Intel chipsets... Current Intel chipsets draw more power than either of Ati or nVidia lines. Your best bet for E7200 is probably some motherboard with nVidia chipset.

If you would get one with GF 8x00 chipset that would be wonderful, I am not sure if there are any for Intel CPU's yet... GF 7050 is good chipset and availeble for LGA 775 but its really outdated for... ciompearing any other chipset but its still strong for HTPC set-ups.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article863-page1.html
That is mini ITX board but still rather good and you can use Core 2 DUo's with it. As you read the review you can see its very capable for HTPC but hardly match for AT 780-series or for GF 8-series chipsets. But it lacks DVI, Dual Channel Ram and its unable to undervolt Bios.

If you want to make HTPC that is agile and doesn't break your wallet... AMD is your way. Intel may have supiority in CPU power but it definately lacks in chipsets and affordable chipsets suitable for HTPC use when you line Intels HTPC offer they get their ass kicked but AMD/ATI and nVidia offerings.

If you go Intel you will have to compromise in chipset. If you go in AMD you will have to compromise in raw CPU power.

I have gone AMD line for my main system that is basicly HTPC solution but in general use simply because 780G had everything I needed and 4850e was affordable. In game rig I need raw power so naturally I went for E8400 wolfendale and P35 chipset. IMHO HTPC set-ups really need agile and well made chipset that is feature rich. nVidia GF 8x00 cipsets and AMD 780-line are both extremely versatile and in HTPC use you do not need descrete card like you may need in Intel chipset due their limitations especially in XP, like not supporting 264 decoding on hardware level in XP...

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Post by smilingcrow » Sat Sep 06, 2008 7:41 am

chinna_n wrote:I am surprized no one pursued this combination. I also want to have good encoding performance for Divx encoding in my BeyondTV setup. For some reason I see some bias towards AMD here.
It’s just that AMD systems make more sense for the majority of HTPCs but where encoding speed is important Intel has the edge on performance and performance per watt.
chinna_n wrote:Anyways, if you look at E 7200 Power consumption it is in order of 20-25watts at full load and at idle it around 2-3 watts at default voltages. Also check this post for E7200 system which only consumes around 37watts. But I am looking for something that can play 1080P Bluray – Link.
As CPUs become more efficient the difference in power consumption between whether you use a GPU or CPU for the majority of the Blu-ray decoding becomes less of an issue. So for an E7200 versus a GPU the difference I estimate to be something like 15 to 20W at most. Considering how few hours per week are typically spent viewing Blu-ray discs it doesn’t add up to a significant difference IMO.
AMD win on low idle power draw which can be significant if the PC is on a lot of the time.

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Post by chinna_n » Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:18 am

smilingcrow wrote:
As CPUs become more efficient the difference in power consumption between whether you use a GPU or CPU for the majority of the Blu-ray decoding becomes less of an issue. So for an E7200 versus a GPU the difference I estimate to be something like 15 to 20W at most. Considering how few hours per week are typically spent viewing Blu-ray discs it doesn’t add up to a significant difference IMO.
AMD win on low idle power draw which can be significant if the PC is on a lot of the time.
Yes, I intend to keep the PC on 24/7, because it also has Tversity Media Server running with 12+GB of Audio. I use it to play Music in Family Room(NetGear Client),as well as from other PC.

G45 looks good to me sofar, but it seems AMD 4850e with Nvidia 8200 MB gives least power consumptions, but I am not sure about Encoding performance difference between 4850e vs E7200 for encoding DivX HD as well as X264 using HandBrake.

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Post by smilingcrow » Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:03 am

chinna_n wrote:G45 looks good to me sofar, but it seems AMD 4850e with Nvidia 8200 MB gives least power consumptions, but I am not sure about Encoding performance difference between 4850e vs E7200 for encoding DivX HD as well as X264 using HandBrake.
The E7200 will offer a useful performance advantage but how significant it is will depend on how much encoding you do. For software that supports SSE4.1 the E7200 will offer a dramatic performance gain as I don’t think AMD dual cores support SSE4.1!

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Post by jessekopelman » Sun Sep 07, 2008 2:40 pm

croddie wrote:Try the DG45IF (microatx) or DG45ID (mini-itx).
DG45ID is µATX and there is no DG45IF. I think maybe you mean DG45FC, which is mini-ITX. Anyway, these are just Intel's own G45 boards. There are other vendors making such boards, in µATX at least, that have better features.

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Post by croddie » Sun Sep 07, 2008 5:18 pm

jessekopelman wrote:DG45ID is µATX and there is no DG45IF. I think maybe you mean DG45FC, which is mini-ITX. Anyway, these are just Intel's own G45 boards. There are other vendors making such boards, in µATX at least, that have better features.
Sorry for the typos, yes DG45FC and DG45ID. Brain glitch.
They seem like great motherboards to me with a modern set of connections including dual independent digital video connections and an extensive feature set.
Only problem is that there have been one or two reports of noise from the motherboard; if that is the case they are not suitable for a silent PC.
chinna_n wrote:
croddie wrote:Try the DG45ID (microatx) or DG45FC (mini-itx).
I am not sure about the Undervolting ability of this MB.Do you have any links about the Undervolting support for this board?
I doubt they provide undervolting but they do provide standard intel power saving features. The E7200 takes I think <2W idle and c 20W load and while it could save some load power undervolted differences between motherboard brands will outweigh this. DG45FC has been tested to have low power with some configurations here and online; see the thread. c 40W idle should be achievable.

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Post by jacky912 » Sun Sep 07, 2008 10:04 pm

I faced the same problem. Want to use Intel E7200 CPU and ATI IGP motherboard (780 or 790GX)...
I hope there are some alternative solutions. (for example: E7200 with EXCELLENT blu-ray & video decoding nivida IGP motherboard)
Regards,
Jacky

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Post by jessekopelman » Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:48 pm

jacky912 wrote: I hope there are some alternative solutions. (for example: E7200 with EXCELLENT blu-ray & video decoding nivida IGP motherboard)
Supposedly coming. Who knows when? The IGP was called Nvidia 9300 , when last I heard, but nothing lately. I think G45 will eventually be pretty decent for those primarily interest in HD video. It takes a while after release for Intel to get it's video drivers up to par (even more so than AMD and Nvidia). By Christmas I'd think there will be some decent G45 choices. Maybe the Nvidia boards will even be out by then. I still think if all you care about is playback, going AMD is the better route though -- no need for an E7200 for that task.

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Post by jacky912 » Mon Sep 08, 2008 3:28 am

jessekopelman wrote:
jacky912 wrote: I hope there are some alternative solutions. (for example: E7200 with EXCELLENT blu-ray & video decoding nivida IGP motherboard)
Supposedly coming. Who knows when? The IGP was called Nvidia 9300 , when last I heard, but nothing lately. I think G45 will eventually be pretty decent for those primarily interest in HD video. It takes a while after release for Intel to get it's video drivers up to par (even more so than AMD and Nvidia). By Christmas I'd think there will be some decent G45 choices. Maybe the Nvidia boards will even be out by then. I still think if all you care about is playback, going AMD is the better route though -- no need for an E7200 for that task.
so I will wait until the NVIDIA 9300 IGP release...
HTPC must be cool & lower power consumption from my personal point-of-view.
Do you agree? brother.

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Post by chinna_n » Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:57 am

jacky912 wrote:I faced the same problem. Want to use Intel E7200 CPU and ATI IGP motherboard (780 or 790GX)...
I hope there are some alternative solutions. (for example: E7200 with EXCELLENT blu-ray & video decoding nivida IGP motherboard)
Regards,
Jacky
jacky912 wrote: HTPC must be cool & lower power consumption from my personal point-of-view.
.
I completely agree with Jacky's two quotes.... and that is what I am looking for...

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Post by ryboto » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:17 am

chinna_n wrote:
MiKeLezZ wrote:P5Q-EM is your best bet. A pico-PSU will do the rest.

p.s. I'm going Intel, too.
Yes, I already bought Dell 12V 200Watts power supply(DC Brick). I want to check MB, then based on that I want to decide which of those PICOs ( 120W or 200W) is appropriate. I am concerned esp during startup 2 HDD+this setup may overwhelm the 120W pico on 12V line.

P5Q-EM is definitely on the list, but I did not see clear power consumption figures for this board.
The PicoPSU is perfectly capable for that setup. It's actually the same design as the PW-200-M, with a 120W thermal limitation. It can deliver more than 120W if you have some airflow directed around the unit. I've actually used a PicoPSU to power a Q9400 based system, with an HD3870. See the link in my signature for more details.

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DFI Motherboard with Nvidia 9300

Post by chinna_n » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:34 am

Looks like it is going to be our answer for questions

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?optio ... &Itemid=37

That is DFI Motherboard with Nvidia 9300

Also MSI announced they are going to have 9300 MB

http://news.softpedia.com/news/MSI-to-A ... 3163.shtml

http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/MSI ... oard-2.jpg


ABIT seems to have it too Model: IN7AG

http://www.hkepc.com/?id=1430&fs=c1h

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Post by chinna_n » Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:34 am

ECS Joins with nVidia 9300 MB

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?optio ... &Itemid=69

Found some good info about this chipset.

http://en.hardspell.com/doc/showcont.asp?news_id=3709
Last edited by chinna_n on Thu Sep 11, 2008 5:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by croddie » Tue Sep 09, 2008 9:00 pm

I don't know the specifics of the asus G45 board and the Nvidia 9300, but Nvidia has a reputation for integrated chipsets with very high power-consumption and Asus has a reputation for motherboards with high power-consumption so barring data to the contrary I would not go with either solution. Intel chipsets don't have the best reputation for power consumption either but G45 is on a 45nm process and intel G45 boards have been tested in various places for low power consumption (<40W idle for a basic system).

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Post by jessekopelman » Wed Sep 10, 2008 2:08 am

croddie wrote:I don't know the specifics of the asus G45 board and the Nvidia 9300, but Nvidia has a reputation for integrated chipsets with very high power-consumption.
I don't know why you say that. Nvidia 6100 and 7050 were pretty much hands down the power consumption champs of their generations. The current 8200/8300 based stuff holds its own with AMD 780G, as well. I think you are confusing Nvidia base chipsets with their highend chipsets. Those highend chipsets are known to be very high power -- understandably so, as they come with tons of features beyond just an IGP. Basically, you are thinking about the stuff made to compete with Intel's X48 not G45. While 9300 stuff may not use much less power than G45, it certainly won't use much more.

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Post by chinna_n » Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:02 am

Looks like there is a date for nVidia 9300/9400 boards.. that is October 15th(instead of sep 23).. It seems it has everything working including the Hybrid SLI. But it has been criticized by inquirer.
The listed prices are notably higher than the 780G line, something that won't help matters at all. The real question is what is the TDP, a spec usually in the slide decks, but notably absent this time, is. The chipset is 6+ months late, during CeBit, OEMs were saying that the main holdup is heat. One has to wonder if Nvidia just gave up on efficiency to get speed, or actually did the engineering that it is notably unable to do on other parts?

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... 00-tuesday

Hopefully, nVidia will stick with this launch date finally.

Also, there is good thread on AVS Forum about these MBs
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... 219&page=2

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Post by QuietOC » Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:41 am

Theory: Intel's chipset heat problems are not due so much to bad chipset design, but more due to bad architecture (a.k.a., their wide quad pumped FSB). The current Intel motherboard architecture was designed to operate with the Netburst Pentium 4 and RAMBUS. Atom can only get around the high power use by using a different type of bus signaling and/or using the lowest bus clock speed.

Both ATI/AMD(RS600) and nVidia's LGA775 chipsets are disappointing, while their HyperTransport architexture chipsets are fine. This new LGA775 IGP from nVidia might offer some decent video performance, but I doubt it will be low power.

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Post by jessekopelman » Tue Sep 30, 2008 11:20 am

QuietOC wrote:Theory: Intel's chipset heat problems are not due so much to bad chipset design, but more due to bad architecture (a.k.a., their wide quad pumped FSB).
Incorrect. The high power Intel chipsets are the low cost ones. They are low cost for the same reason they are high power -- they use old 90nm manufacturing processes. Intel is quite capable of making and do make far lower power chipsets. Unfortunately the boards based on these chipsets tend to cost more money than AMD/Nvidia chipset boards with the same features or are just not available at all in some form-factors CPU combinations. The real problem is that new chipset drivers and BIOS support don't seem to be there until a year or more after release, so if you get the latest low power design you may have all kinds of problems getting things to work. Since AMD's current HTPC chipset is the most mature, it has the clear advantage.

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Post by smilingcrow » Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:30 pm

QuietOC wrote:Both ATI/AMD(RS600) and nVidia's LGA775 chipsets are disappointing, while their HyperTransport architexture chipsets are fine. This new LGA775 IGP from nVidia might offer some decent video performance, but I doubt it will be low power.
Well not compared to an AM2 chipset as the LGA775 chipset contains the memory controller so will inherently use more power. It’s still possible that it will use less power than the G33/G35 chipsets; I’m ignoring the 3D and HD video aspects and referring to the core chipset functionality.
QuietOC wrote:Theory: Intel's chipset heat problems are not due so much to bad chipset design, but more due to bad architecture (a.k.a., their wide quad pumped FSB).
What heat problem do you refer to? I’m not aware of one! Just because the design uses more power than an AM2 chipset doesn’t mean it has a problem.
QuietOC wrote:The current Intel motherboard architecture was designed to operate with the Netburst Pentium 4 and RAMBUS.
It’s a clunky design the old FSB architecture with memory controller in the chipset and it does seem to be power inefficient although if Intel fabricated their chipsets on their latest process node it would improve things.
It’ll be interesting to see how much Nehalem changes things with regard to the power consumption of Intel’s chipsets and CPUs. Bloomfield will give a clue but as it’s a high end design with tri-channel memory support and multi GPU support I don’t expect it will be exactly low power. The mainstream Nehalem release is a long way off which leaves AMD with the lead for low idle power desktop dual-core systems for quite some time. I wonder when we can expect 45nm AMD dual cores to arrive and extend this advantage?
QuietOC wrote:Atom can only get around the high power use by using a different type of bus signaling and/or using the lowest bus clock speed.
Its design philosophy is very different from that of mainstream systems so it makes a lot of compromises. The Atom chipset for embedded systems is already impressive though with a TDP of 2.3W which means 4.3W for CPU + chipset.

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Post by chinna_n » Sat Oct 04, 2008 4:19 pm

Just found this link which shows power consumption of various CPU, interestingly Q9300 only consume around 45watts. I am wondering what happens if we can undervolt it little bit, we should able to bring it around 35watts easily I think. Quadcore at 35Watts, wow my laptops Turion ML-40 uses same power pretty much.
http://www.behardware.com/articles/717- ... e7200.html

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Post by andyb » Sun Oct 05, 2008 3:00 am

Buy an E7200 by all means, but dont touch Intel motherboards their support is total shit. By a motherboard from a company that gives a damn about its end users.

viewtopic.php?t=50270


Andy

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