Home Theatre PC motherboard shootout

Posted on Wednesday, February 06 2008 @ 9:26 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Bit Tech has just published a three way shootout of Home Theatre PC motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte and MSI. The boards are based on three different IGPs from Intel, AMD and Nvidia and we examine performance in real-world 2D tasks before looking at audio output quality, video playback performance and video image quality.

"If you're after a system today, we'd still go for the inexpensive MSI K9AGM3-FIH. It's a perfect interim solution because it's very cheap and comes with a good balance of features. There's also the fact that the AM2 CPU will drop into an AM2+ socket should you want to get one of the newer IGP boards coming in the near future, as these are all likely to feature full-HD video decode offloading. Everything you need is there and while it's not perfect, the video quality on offer is acceptable.

We're genuinely surprised at the outcome – we didn't ever expect the AMD 690G to last anywhere near this long as our preferred choice, however the MSI seems to have got it right with its K9AGM3-FIH as it remains the best solution for the time being."

Check it out at Bit Tech.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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