Mobo Help

[mattsd]

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening guys

I was hoping someone can help, I'm looking to make the most sleek HTPC possible using a Streacom FC5.

However, as you can imagine, due to the dimensions of the case and the built-in heatsink, the choices of Motherboard are pretty limited, and this isn't helped by my desire to "futureproof" it to a certain extent and be able to output HD-Audio into an AVR.
Has anybody setup a system along these lines before? Or browsing the below list do any jump out to you that you know will do the job?

There is a list of compatible boards i've listed below:

Asus
F1A75-M
F1A55-M
F1A55-M LE
F1A55-M LX
F1A55-M LX PLUS
F1A75-M LE
F1A75-M PRO
Gigabyte
GA-A55M-DS2
GA-A55M-S2V
GA-A55M-S2HP
GA-A75M-S2V
GA-A75M-UD2H
MSI
A75MA-G55
A75MA-P35
A55M-P35
Zotac
A75ITX-A-E

P.S. I plan on using the low profile PCI-E slot for either Dual DVB T-2 or DVB S-2 tuner, so using that slot is not an option.


Thanks in advance Guys

 

[EndlessWaves]

Presumably if you're talking about 'futureproofing' you'll want SATA6Gbps and USB3 and can discount a number of the A55-based motherboards as they don't feature either natively.

 

[mattsd]

Presumably if you're talking about 'futureproofing' you'll want SATA6Gbps and USB3 and can discount a number of the A55-based motherboards as they don't feature either natively.

Ok Thanks for that.

 

[DavidT]

Also if future proofing is important you can discount all the A55 and A75 motherboards as they all use the FM1 CPU socket which will be incompatible with the next generation AMD processors.

Intel Sandybridge and the next generation Ivybridge processors all use the same 1155 CPU socket.

David

 

[EndlessWaves]

Also if future proofing is important you can discount all the A55 and A75 motherboards as they all use the FM1 CPU socket which will be incompatible with the next generation AMD processors.

Intel Sandybridge and the next generation Ivybridge processors all use the same 1155 CPU socket.

David

That's a bit misleading, Ivy Bridge is only the refresh of Sandy Bridge and the mid-range and high end Ivy Bridge processors have already been released so there won't be any significant upgradability other than what's currently availible. Intel's next generation processors are code named Haswell and will be using a different socket, LGA 1150.

Given AMD are behind on performance I'd think there's a greater chance that they'll make the effort to make FM2 socket motherboards FM1 processor compatible than Intel will.

 

[DavidT]

But you still won't be able to upgrade your FM1 motherboard with the next generation AMD processor.

David