Is this a good selection for an HTPC?

I am building an HTPC is a microATX HTPC case. I plan on adding an e6600 and connecting it to my 1080p 48" LG HDTV via This motherboards HDMI cable. The HTPC will have a Blu-ray player. I will not be playing games on it, but I want smooth BR playback. Is this a good board? Will the Onboard video be enough to support good Blu-ray playback?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128396

HTPC or just a playback machine?

G41 IIRC supports DXVA so if your HD videos are properly encoded, they will play just fine. Blu-Ray VC1 I think follows the same format so should be good to go.

If you want a full HTPC might want to beef up the processor though or go with a discrete card that can handle GPGPU duties for encoding (will need to research it htough, last I tried was 49850 and 8800s and GPU encoding locked like crap OR was slower than an AMD quad at doing, (IE was fast and crappy or goodbut slower) . At the very least get yourself a hardware based tv tuner.

Without a doubt will be getting a hardware tuner, maybe a tunercard if decent ones come out soone. Will be using this Machine as a full HTPC (tv, DVR, DIVX, WMC, BLU-Ray, MUSIC etc)
an e6600 is too weak to handle HTPC duties!?

To handle anything you can throw at it? pretty easy to choke a E6600. Specially if you do any DVDripping.

Neuromancer said:

To handle anything you can throw at it? pretty easy to choke a E6600. Specially if you do any DVDripping.

Click to expand...

You mean encoding, right? Ripping is just copying to a hard drive or whatever. Don't need CPU power for that.

ratbuddy said:

You mean encoding, right? Ripping is just copying to a hard drive or whatever. Don't need CPU power for that.

Click to expand...

Agreed. As I understand it ripping would be when I create a DVD image of a movie. Encoding would be creating a DIVX file from that image. I can do that powerhouse work on my main rig no problem. But for realtime playback it shouldn't be a problem correct? And just to be clear a e6600 is a C2D right?

Bageland2000 said:

Agreed. As I understand it ripping would be when I create a DVD image of a movie. Encoding would be creating a DIVX file from that image. I can do that powerhouse work on my main rig no problem. But for realtime playback it shouldn't be a problem correct? And just to be clear a e6600 is a C2D right?

Click to expand...

The processor in my HTPC is a little weaker than an E6600 (I think) and it works just fine playing back Blurays.

Yes, E6600 is a C2D.

G41 M-2

I just built an ESC board much like this Gigabyte, it is ready to do HTPC duties!