I want to build a new home theater PC to connect to the hdtv.

I'm gathering the parts and so far I have below, most from newegg
- Cooler master Elite case
- Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2-800
- Corsair 500W Power supply
- DVD and blu-ray drive

I have an extra C2D laying around (E6600)

I need
- Harddrive (big)
- Motherboard
- ??

Newegg is selling P5E-VM with HDMI for $135 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131237

is it good or should I go with AMD route, Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H 690G HDMI ($75)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128056

While I do think that G35 would be great chipset for HTPCs I do have some (personal concerns) with Asus's motherboard

Audio, as far as I can tell it doesnt support copy protected material which should be an issue if you want to use HD Audio as far as I can tell.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/images/pro...tion_Guide.jpg
http://avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=935302
I guess it's downsampled somehow but since there's very little software out omly time will tell what quality you'll get.

I am also a bit concerned regarding LAN chipset. While Atheros (Attansic) makes great WLAN products their LAN (Ethernet) chipset doesnt seem to be adopted by many and/or supported very well. Asus seems to be the only one who might release a new driver (if it'll every happen) and BSD/*Unix support seems to be minimal. Even though UNIX people swear when it comes to Realtek's LAN chipsets they do actually work (somewhat) and are well tested and supported in Windows. Of course getting an Intel LAN would be great but they're very rare unfortunately.

Other than that it seems to be a decent motherboard although I assue that Gigabyte is going to cook up something with G35+ALC889+HDMI in the near future but you'll get Realtek Gbit LAN most likely.

The AMD board is very nice, AMD also recommends it as a "stable platform". Keep in mind that AM2 is a "dying" platform due to AM2+.

You should also have i mind that most Intel chipset based motherboards does not (at least G945 and G965 in general) does not support non stock voltage (1.8V). I guess this is getting more and more phased out though nowdays but I'd check before getting a board.

As for HDD I'd say that Hitachi's 7K1000 seems to be a good choice if you plan to use it as both a system drive and storage. It's a bit more noisy than WDs and Seagates couterparts though due to 5 platters.
http://www.storagereview.com/php/ben...2=323&devCnt=3

Just some thoughts....
//Danne

I wouldn't worry about copy protection now, if theres a problem in the future just use Slysofts Anydvd.

The board looks great except for its Realtek ALC883 audio, which is not the best. There are no quality reviews out yet, there a few crappy ones that try to test the gaming potential. I don't know why those morons would test on-board graphics for gaming potential, its clearly meant for HTPC use.

The gigabyte board should surface soon:

http://www.computerbase.de/bild/news/17135/25/

I don't know what audio its using.

You probably have to wait for a S2H since H seems to stand for HDMI.
http://www.drut.org/index.php?option...d=58&Itemid=58
VGA :-/

As for Anydvd

--> www.doom9.org
//Danne

fare rights will always prevail

Install a gfx card and it should make a better way with "hdtv".

Explain yourself
//Danne

I have an X2 4200+ AM2 Low power CPU running on that Gigabyte ATi 690G mobo with integrated graphics. This will run upto 1080i res for me without problems (should even reach 1080P but I dont have a display that runs that high). ATi do make the 690G chipset for Intel as well but I have not seen a review of it (I had a spare AMD so used it).

The E6600 cpu should provide enough power to decode blue-ray etc without to many problems (my Q6600 does it and it does not even break a sweat) but that chipset DOES NOT support H264 acceleration which is a BIG drawback.

Just kit it out with enough ram (reccomend 3GB if going for Vista and assign 512-1GB to the graphics if you can) and you should be fine, if you have problems then you could fit a new graphics card. What you really need to look for is H264, VC1 and Mpeg2 acceleration in the graphics hardware which the ATi chipset provides.

I have a WD GreenPower 1TB drive in my HTPC and after setting the AAM to quiet I cant hear it. Even with the drive left at default it still only makes very quiet clicks.

Wow, great info. So G35 sucks.

Sell the e6600 on ebay, and pick up a 690G board with onboard HDMI, gigabyte S2H or S3H.

@ qwarkz

No, ATi/AMD does not make 690G/V for Intel.
RX1250 is on the other hand available for Intel platforms but G35 is superior in all ways.

As for H.264 is only used if you use PowerDVD and well, since ATis requirements are pretty high (at least a 4600+ CPU) I doubt it offloads CPU by any noticable amount.

Feel free to tell us why its a "BIG" drawback? Most people use ffdshow or CoreAVC (CoreAVC provides worse quality btw) and it'll run fine on an Intel E6600 CPU.
Even if you use PowerDVD and want to upscale or whatever hardware acceleration will be disabled.

Out of cruiosity, have you used integrated graphics recently?
Video is generally allocated on on demand and giving it more than 128Mb is just waste of memory and it most likely will use less.

I should mention that G35 does support DirectX 10 and may be very useful for upscaling. Not to mention stability and reliability compared to AMD/nForce....

Personally I wouldn't get a G35 until there are quality reviews that specifically test them as HTPC's and not stupidly like a gaming machine.

However, even if G35 doesn't do H.264 off loading, I think an e6600 would be fast enough to do the job.

Exactly what do you want tested?
//Danne

Use of the HQV benchmark tool: http://www.hqv.com/benchmark.cfm

There are serveral reviews but I didn't find any yet for 690G using cat.7.11 here are a couple:

Hotharware scroll down to the HQV tests.

ocworkbench 690G performs not so well here, I didn't read the review.

Here are some video cards: anandtech

Thanks guys but what is the verdict?

Wait for G35 review first? I need it soon...

Since you have a fast e6600 I would go for it.

http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showth...236#post424236
//Danne

Hi DiiZzY,

did you refer to my post?
I can recommend ATI gfx models 2400*, 2600*, 3850* and 3870* for hardware/software accellerated "HD" usage.
All that models have UVD support. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Video_Decoder

Too bad they didn't show the HQV output though. 95 out of 130 is pretty good.

Check this out, I didn't find a review with catalyst 7.11, but found that cat 7.11 upgrades 690G/V chipset from 1200 to 2100: Link

@ _chef_
So the E6600 CPU wont handle it fine?
//Danne

The CPU is not everything.
I'm not sure about the power of the oboard gfx chips but I've read not good info & charts about them, mostly.

vr zone did a review on the Asus board, but no HQV tests. Review