Joining the party of HTPC motherboards is a review from Bjorn3d of an ASUS 780g offering. The board looks pretty standard, but it looks like setup is not nearly as seamless as one would hope or expect. Here are some of the gripes, but read the full review for all the lowdown.
Bjorn3d We do like the fact that it has two 1x PCI-E slots instead of 2 PCI-slots as well as both optical and coax S/PDIF. It does seem like the separate power connector for the sound does help a bit. It is also nice to get a remote and an IR-receiver for the remote. Last but not least the inclusion of 2 RCA-connectors is a very nice touch. We are not necessarily as impressed with the execution though of all the new features. The ASUS Home Theater Gate software is a joke. We cannot see anyone seriously using it. We also are not completely convinced with DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC as it felt it changed the sound a bit more than we would like it to. Last but not least we were disappointed that ASUS could not include some better documentation so we could figure out why we could not get the VIA HDMI and S/PDIF “audio devices” working with DTS Surround Sensation.
