Best Intel HTPC Motherboard

[dealmaster]

I've got all the other parts I need, but I'm trying to pick out a motherboard to go with the spare Pentium D 950 CPU I have. I've been doing a little research and have found a few. I'm looking at:

ASUS P5E-VM
ASUS P5Q-EM
ASUS P5N7A-VM

I don't necessarily need 4 memory slots, but these boards seem to allow me the option of using the onboard video to take care of HD processing so the CPU won't have to. Am I right in thinking so or would I need to get a cheap ATI 3450 to take care of HD encoding? I'll want this computer to drive 1080p to my plasma, so that's an important consideration.

 

[nd4spdbh2]

id go with the P5N7A-VM

that integrated chipset is friggin awesome for htpc use... full hardware decoding of hd content .. much better than any intel IGP chipset.

check out this articles

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3432

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article892-page1.html

 

[ps2cho]

Do not get the 3450. From what I understand, it cannot "fully" decode 1080p content and can struggle at some points. Spend the extra $10-$20 more and get a 4x50 series card. I had the same intention in the beginning until I found this out.

 

[LandShark]

I'm using the P5Q-EM (G45 chipset) in my living room main HTPC. it runs fine and all, <5% CPU usage when playing Bluray. LPCM via HDMI to my AVR. even paired w/ a E8400, it idles @ 55w, <70w when playing Bluray movies.

however, on my next build, I think I'll go for the Gigabyte's nVidia 9400 chipset board instead of Asus's 9300 or another G45 board. from what I've heard/read, the chipset runs hot and the Asus might have some overheat issue..... don't get me wrong, I do like the G45 board, it does what it does and what I want (HA, LPCM HDMI, etc.). the only thing that I think as a "con" is it will only have hardware accelerated in Vista, no XP HA support!!! so, you must run Vista for the G45 boards! not a deal breaker, but good to keep this in mind!! (I didn't know when it first came out....)

with any of the latest G45 or 9x00 chipset boards, you do not need any video card for HA at all!! and both support LPCM via HDMI. plus, nVidia's 9x00 chipset has prefect 1080p/24 support (if that matter you, for me, it does for my next htpc client build) while I've heard the ATI cards still having problem w/ 1080p/24 support!! and on paper, the G45 chipset should have PAVP (did I spell it right?) support, even tho no one knows if it really does at the moment.