Motherboard for an HTPC

[greghouse]

I would like a motherboard that has a VGA on board and an optical SPDI-F and also containg PCI-Express 16x slots. Do you have an ideas? Thankyou

 

[surridge8]

Abit NF-M2 nView has onboard VGA, optical SP-DIF, a single PCI-e x16 and also a single PCI-e x1 slot (eg, for terratek TV tuner card). It is for AMD socket AM2 and comes in microATX form factor should fit in any case. There are others, but I personally have this board, though not running yet since the internals (CPU, RAM etc..) should arrive tomorrow. If you need any more information on this particular board, i'll lbe happy to provide any details. Hope this helps

 

[madmurph]

I wouldn't waste the resources on a built-in VGA. Get a motherboard with some future capacity for upgrading, and stick in a cheap PCI-e card. You can get some of the nVidia 6600 LE cards for under $75, and they are great for HTPC -- cheap, cool, quiet. This is a good motherboard, with a good layout for HTPC, and a good price. It has SPDIF, FireWire, and decent enough Audio, that you wouldn't have to buy that sound card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131070

 

[utaka95]

Funny, the advice around here is always - "Get too much video card, ignore the sound". Well after 6 months w/ my htpc I give the exact opposite advice - use a good onboard video board like an Nforce 6100, and buy a decent inexpensive sound card. You don't need extreme amounts of video power - but onboard sound will make your ears "tired" in no time. Spend the difference on a quiet power supply (Seasonic's are great) and big hard drives.

 

[Phillip]

I would like a motherboard that has a VGA on board and an optical SPDI-F and also containg PCI-Express 16x slots. Do you have an ideas? Thankyou

I'm using an Asus P5B-VM in an Antec Fusion case. It has everything you requested.

http://usa.asus.com/products3.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=332&slname=Intel%20G965

And yes, I finally registered so I could post a responce. I've been lurking for years.