Mobo for htpc and recording.

[muttley600]

My last pc build has finally crapped out on me and was getting a little outdated. The time has come to start from scratch.

Some advice from some of you expert computer geeks and recording gurus would be nice right now.

Here's the Target. I want to build a new htpc that can handle all my media needs and also be able to handle HD content and preferably be hdmi compliant as I'm also in the market soon for a new TV. The machine has also to act as my main recording box. currently I use firewire and don't have a need to change.

My build list so far is this-

# CPU: TBC?

# CPU Cooler: Scythe Mini Ninja Heatpipe CPU Cooler

# Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, AMD 780G, S AM2+, PCI-E 2.0, DDR2 1066MHz, SATA II, SATA RAID, HDMI1.3, µATX

# Memory: 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-18

# Graphics Card: HIS H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670

# HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB SATA

# PSU: Seasonic S12II 430W Silent Power Supply PSU

# Case: Antec Fusion Remote


The whole lot is designed to run silently and cool. It will serve as a media centre as well as a recording pc. I have all the other bits required optical drives, monitor etc. These components are the ones I'd like comments on.

My questions are to those in the know are,

What cpu would be good to put in this board? Are the black edition Phenoms over the top for what I'm after doing? Would a decent Athlon 64 dual core be ok?

Is the mobo OK for recording and processing? I don't do a huge amount of video PROCESSING but some on occasion.

Are there any more current boards out there that are better. The 790x chipset for example but this doesn't seem to be out there in micro ATX?

Any sage advice would be good before I pull the trigger on this lot. Not into gaming either. Solely interested in the htpc and recording side of things.

 

[Hard2Hear]

Can you wait a month? New stuff coming down the pipe as we sit here. And it will be worth the (now short) wait, if you want to go big power.

I have a very similar Gigabyte board in one of my PCs at home and it runs like a champ. Its mostly my dink around box and my OSX86 tester box. Though I have run recpording apps fine on it. Only warning is that they're short on USB power, so not too many USB devices.

 

[muttley600]

Interesting! What new stuff is in the pipe. As far as I was aware the 790x chipset was still the one in development. I've been hanging on to see if that was going to arrive on a mATX board but no sign and audio on the HDMI is still not fully supported. I could be way off the plan here though. Tell me more!!

The mobo 'm lookng at has 4 ex usb and 4 internal? Not sure I'd need to use all of them and I've not seen a similar mATX with more than that?

 

[Hard2Hear]

The new Intel chips are nearly out. Ive got the new X58 board in testing here right now with the new Intel Core i7 chip and its REALLY fast. I'm not sure what the micro and mini front will be, or when they will be released.

If you're hung on AMD, the Blackbox 9950 is really the only one worth looking at, since the price drops.

 

[muttley600]

The new Intel chips are nearly out. Ive got the new X58 board in testing here right now with the new Intel Core i7 chip and its REALLY fast. I'm not sure what the micro and mini front will be, or when they will be released.

If you're hung on AMD, the Blackbox 9950 is really the only one worth looking at, since the price drops.

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not really after cpu power. I just want the fastest and coolest required to do the job. I've always bought at least 6 months behind with cpu's. That £200 worth is going to half that by then and dropping in price by the month.

Anyhow I'm not set on AMD but I am more used to their BIOS and I have had better luck running them cool and quiet and thats the biggie for me. Odd that but thats my experience. It was more opinions on the mobo I was after and/or other suggestions. I would like advice on a minumum spec for cpu it is over a year since I bought one. I'm a Cubase user and use a handful of plugins. The only other cpu intesive apps I use would be photoshop. The htcp side of things will safely run on a dual core 2.4g or similar as most of the encoding is done on the tuners or pci cards. What cpu are you guys using for your cubase boxes these days?