I’m dead-locked in my decision of which mobo to use in my next HTCP build. I need an mATX to fit the case I chose. The boards I’ve listed here seem to be the two best options. The Gigabyte board uses the AMD 780G chipset, while the Asus board incorporates Nvidia’s new GeForce 8300 board.
Link to Gigabyte’s product page:
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2859&ProductName=GA-MA78GPM-DS2H
Link to Asus’ product page:
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=1&model=2319&l1=3&l2=149&l3=676&l4=0
The two chipsets have similiar features, with a slight performance edge in video encode-decode going to 780G. Noticable gaming performance gain going to the 780G. The 8300 can send multichannel LPCM audio over HDMI, while the 780 can not, and the 8300 is superior over the 780G when it comes to energy savings.
Both boards have e-SATA ports on the back, which is important storage capacity expansion. Both have optic sp/dif output connectors on the back. The Asus board has six USB on the back, while the Gigabyte board has four. The Gigabyte board uses the Realtec ALC889a codec, which boasts to have one of the clearest SNR (106) than that of the other codecs. The Gigabyte board also has Dolby Home Theater (which includes Dolby Digital Live and a whole suite of Dolby technologies except Dolby HD). Additionally, the Gigabyte board has DTS Connect.
The Asus board has the newer ALC1200 codec, which I was unable to find any specs about it, other than it is newer than the ALC889a and is much improved, but details as to why or how is elusive. I was, however, able to confirm that the Asus board has no Dolby or DTS technologies. This may be a mute-point since its 8300 chipset is capable of LPCM and will do Dolby HD (with software) over HDMI. On the other hand, why would anyone want Dolby HD over HDMI (with software) while the same (also with software) can be achieved on either motherboard via its optical connections?
I’m anxious to see which board wins! Vote!
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