New Motherboard with HDMI

The 690g is ok, but a bit of a contradiction in terms, theres a few on the market including an Asus version.

The thing is, it has hdmi, and hdcp, however it just isn't powerful enough to base a high def machine on. For £50 its not bad, but nowhere in the league of a 7600gt or even an x1600, which both can be found with HDCP for around 60-70.
 
Still, if you buy a fast enough processor, you won't need hardware acceleration at all - for Bluray/HDDVD, it just creates lots quality problems.

Add a 4600+ for £75ish, and that board can play all HDDVDs and Blurays in software mode.
 
I'd seriously look at the Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD, for an all-in-one solution for a HTPC.

Its currently got the best intergrated graphics of any MATX mobo, ALC885 HDCP protected 7.1 audio, HDMI, and can take a quad core.

Get it for £67 delivered using the google checkout deal through Ebuyer at the mo.
 
I take it this doesn't do audio over HDMI and if it does, its just routing SPDIF sound over the HDMI interface and not full bandwidth 8 channel LPCM TrueHD type sound?
 
Tks for the reply's guys!

Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD £74.68 inc VAT looks to be worth the sheckles!
 
I take it this doesn't do audio over HDMI and if it does, its just routing SPDIF sound over the HDMI interface and not full bandwidth 8 channel LPCM TrueHD type sound?

We can only hope - Im waiting for mine and have yet to see.

On Abits website it quotes the HDMI falls under the v1.2 specification, and that alongside the ALC885 chipset hopefully will live up to expectation.

If not I imagine it would be a SPDIF passthrough as you say...
 
will this motherboard tied in with a E6420 processor be able to handle x264 files?
reason i'm asking is that i've heard the Radeon Xpress 1250 GPU isnt powerful enough to handle it?
I'm getting really confused trying to build a high spec HTPC
I just need somthing with HDMI HD sound/graphics/video and enough power to do some video editing now and again
 
Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD

Can anyone tel me if this board supports "wake from USB"?

Cheers
 
will this motherboard tied in with a E6420 processor be able to handle x264 files?

Yes - downloaded x264 stuff will run extremely easily regardless of the graphics card. For example, playing an x264 file of a certain high-budget- island-based-drama-with-flashbacks-and-Others :D on my e4300 running at 2ghz resulted in about 30% CPU with ffdshow (which can't use graphics card acceleration at all). The e6420 is 2.13ghz and has double the cache, so it'll be slightly better than that.

If you're meaing h264 as in the format for some HD-DVD/Bluray discs (x264 is encoding software, h264 is the file standard it encodes in), using PowerDVD 7.3 it will just manage the highest bitrate discs - eg 70% average, 85% peak.

For other HDDVD/BD formats, eg VC1 and MPEG2, it'll run them in its sleep.

It also overclocks insanely, easily to 3ghz without changing voltage, and anywhere in the region 3.5-3.8ghz if you crank up the voltage and have a good air cooler.
 
Yes - downloaded x264 stuff will run extremely easily regardless of the graphics card. For example, playing an x264 file of a certain high-budget- island-based-drama-with-flashbacks-and-Others :D on my e4300 running at 2ghz resulted in about 30% CPU with ffdshow (which can't use graphics card acceleration at all). The e6420 is 2.13ghz and has double the cache, so it'll be slightly better than that.

If you're meaing h264 as in the format for some HD-DVD/Bluray discs (x264 is encoding software, h264 is the file standard it encodes in), using PowerDVD 7.3 it will just manage the highest bitrate discs - eg 70% average, 85% peak.

For other HDDVD/BD formats, eg VC1 and MPEG2, it'll run them in its sleep.

It also overclocks insanely, easily to 3ghz without changing voltage, and anywhere in the region 3.5-3.8ghz if you crank up the voltage and have a good air cooler.

Are you outputting 1080P?
 
Thanks arfster :thumbsup:
First piece in the puzzle complete

E6420 Processor

I've got the case sorted out too

HD160B Home Theatre PC Enclosure

Can anyone recommend a decent ATX motherboard with a HDMI output and HD sound, HDCP etc?

cheers

....this is still driving me round the bend
 
You should consider the AMD 690G chipset boards. I think the Asus M2A-VM HDMI and the Sapphire PI-AM2RS690MHD are two of the better ones, but there are a lot. This chipset is also known as the ATi Radeon X1250.

There is also an intel version, which is obviously more appropriate if ur buying the C2D cpu. The only board im aware of that uses this chipset is the mentioned Abit F-I90HD. However i have heard that a large number of the first revisions of these boards are failing. Im sure i read this on anandtech, where one guy who retails has pulled it from sale.

There is also the nVidia MCP68 which has HDMI. IT has been delayed though for a month or two. This is for AMD CPUs. The intel version is the MCP73 but thats about all i can tell you and im not even sure on that.
 
Some good info in this thread, let us know how you get on with your builds.
 
Arfster what software/drivers are you using on your 690g chipset board for Bluray playback at such plausable run speeds?

Our research did not find such plausable findings without hardware acceleration.

Can you confirm using a direct IDE high def drive, and not capped/re-encoded rips, which of course will play on the 690g, ref: .ts, .x264 etc. This may mis-lead members into going into a high def player route and the 690g not peforming as stated.

Also which driver package for the gpu did you use, we found hdcp to be a large problem in earlier driver builds, the only stable drivers being the higher end ati/nvidia pureviedeo.

Also the fact you are not using any dvd to bypass? Also which software you are using to play the high def content? And also confirmation of res change conversion on a 1080p screen.
 
Arfster what software/drivers are you using on your 690g chipset board for Bluray playback at such plausable run speeds?

Our research did not find such plausable findings without hardware acceleration.

I'm not using a 690g at all - since you don't need hardware acceleration it doesn't really matter what motherboard you're using.

See here for some graphs of cpu usage with various cards:

http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/showcont.asp?news_id=385&pageid=445

The 3800+ is not quite enough for h264 Bluray - at the bottom it shows 95.8%, and as that's an average it'll struggle with peaks. Thus you need a little bit more: a 4400+ will be fine, or a Core2Duo 2ghz (which is what I have). I've done a whole lot of tests on these for another forum, can dig them out if anyone needs.

That's h264 of course, VC1 is much easier. For example, Serenity on a C2D at 2ghz just now averages 45% for me (Vista, 100.65, PowerDVD 7.3, xbox usb drive). Overclocked to 3ghz with the 7300GT helping it's down around half that.

There have been two major developments here since the first big articles (eg Anandtech) came out on HDDVD playback:

1) The PowerDVD decoders have improved a lot.
2) The 8500/8600 - if you look at that hardspell article above, they show h264 Bluray playing on a Sempron 1.6ghz at 15% CPU (although oddly enough you need more cpu for VC1, because the 8500/8600 only accelerate that about the same as the 7xxx series).
 
Tim_Kay, would you be able to provide me with a link to your retail outlet? PM me if you don't want to post in here.
 
arfster, have you put your specs in the Vista specs thread, linked in my sig? If not could you as I'm building my HDHTPC at the mo and I'd be really interested in what you've done so far.

Assuming it is Vista?
 
I have seen 4x1GB GEIL Value 666Mhz RAM (@ less than £85/2GB!!) 4:4:4:12 and E6600 used with this board for a stable o/c at 368MHz. That's FSB 1.472GHz!!

Not bad going for a cheap little mATX system.
 

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