SPCR

Nice review ! Am really glad to see that you mentioned overclocking in the article. Done with some sanity and common sense it is a great way of extracting great deal of performance for free .

I'm starting to research my next HTPC, and am focusing on GeForce 8200 and 9300 IGP motherboards. Right now, one can purchase the ASUS M3N78-VM plus an AMD 4850e processor for $135.

The Intel/9300 P5N7A-VM motherboard in the review article is $120 all by itself.

From the recent IGP comparisons on Anandtech, the 8200 and 9300 offer basically equivalent video performance.

So... Is there any compelling reason to go with the more expensive Intel/9300 over AMD/8200 for HTPC use?

Jay_S wrote:So... Is there any compelling reason to go with the more expensive Intel/9300 over AMD/8200 for HTPC use?

Probably not, esp. if $$ is a major factor.

onboard graphics beating a current gen(ish) low-end discreet card brings a smile to my face

Speaking of lower power consumption, i saw this review that compared the an Nvidia 9400 board with the P5N71-VM, and the 9400 used less power. Maybe you could review this Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H next?

http://www.trustedreviews.com/motherboa ... UM-DS2H/p4

porkchop wrote:onboard graphics beating a current gen(ish) low-end discreet card brings a smile to my face

Yeah, I felt like ... David beating, if not Goliath, then at least Goliaths younger sibling, LOL.

Simply awesome! I also like how they packed almost every possible connector onto the back plate. Makes me want to get one of these!

I also like the review format. Simple and seems to work and include all I want to know (and then some more). Btw, I think there was a slip in the intro "(...) and the G31 boards, which had limited features and a relatively high price-tag.".

Anyway, it is interesting, that the Gigabyte 9400 is less power consuming than the ASUS 9300, since the difference between 9400 and 9300 is nothing but increased clock speed on the graphics core, IIRC? Must be something inherent with the Gigabyte features that is not on the ASUS board. If that is true, the Gigabyte board is AWESOME.

Another thing that struck me is how ASUS placed the COM1 and LPT1 headers on the top right cornor of the board. Seems like an odd spot if you want to have the header on the back at an expansion port.

Although only reviewing the boards of one manufacture might bring some sort of consistency, I get concerned that spcr might seem to be in bed with Asus. Almost all of the recent mobo-reviews has been on ASUS boards and 2 of the last 3 gfx cards reviewed were Asus (the third a reference card).

I do understand that not all manufacturers sends boards for reviewing, but I would imagine that others might be swayed by the chance to get reviewed in an objective way with the numbers to back the conclusions up in a venue that has currently been almost exclusive to one of their biggest competitors...

Tobias wrote:Although only reviewing the boards of one manufacture might bring some sort of consistency, I get concerned that spcr might seem to be in bed with Asus. Almost all of the recent mobo-reviews has been on ASUS boards and 2 of the last 3 gfx cards reviewed were Asus (the third a reference card).

I do understand that not all manufacturers sends boards for reviewing, but I would imagine that others might be swayed by the chance to get reviewed in an objective way with the numbers to back the conclusions up in a venue that has currently been almost exclusive to one of their biggest competitors...

So would you prefer MikeC turn down the opportunity to review an item just because its made by Asus? As far as i know, he doesnt purchase any of the items reviewed, if Asus is the only manufacturer that sends him samples, how is that his fault?

I'm impressed with the results but due to the bad firewire performance and stability issues that previous nforce chipset suffered from, I'd never pick a nvidia chipset again.

porkchop wrote:onboard graphics beating a current gen(ish) low-end discreet card brings a smile to my face

No, current gen is Radeon HD 4xx0 and Geforce 2xx.

It is on par with two or three generation old cards. It basically is a Geforce 8500GT--a card that didn't really outperform a Geforce 7600GS/7300GT.

Thanks for the review, Lawrence

if it wasn't for the very high price I would have bought one of these allready

Tobias wrote:Although only reviewing the boards of one manufacture might bring some sort of consistency, I get concerned that spcr might seem to be in bed with Asus. Almost all of the recent mobo-reviews has been on ASUS boards and 2 of the last 3 gfx cards reviewed were Asus (the third a reference card).

Asus does send us a lot of stuff, but if we were really "in bed" with them, we'd sugar-coat everything. When they do something wrong on one of their products, we're not shy about pointing them out.

QuietOC wrote:

porkchop wrote:onboard graphics beating a current gen(ish) low-end discreet card brings a smile to my face

No, current gen is Radeon HD 4xx0 and Geforce 2xx.

It is on par with two or three generation old cards. It basically is a Geforce 8500GT--a card that didn't really outperform a Geforce 7600GS/7300GT.

He's talking about how it beat the Radeon HD 3450, a not so old discrete card.

rpsgc wrote: He's talking about how it beat the Radeon HD 3450, a not so old discrete card.

The HD 3450 was slower/less efficient than the card it replaced (HD 2400 XT)--a lemon, really.

You're turning into a troll QuietOC, no need to split hairs.

Nice review. Too bad that I don't need an HTPC.

Aris wrote: So would you prefer MikeC turn down the opportunity to review an item just because its made by Asus? As far as i know, he doesnt purchase any of the items reviewed, if Asus is the only manufacturer that sends him samples, how is that his fault?

I did not intend to put blame on anyone for anything. Make no mistake, spcr reviews are the only reviews I ever bother to read. I am only concerned that something that isn't thought of might make spcr questionable, when so much trouble and effort goes into making sound quality reviews.

Asus does send us a lot of stuff, but if we were really "in bed" with them, we'd sugar-coat everything. When they do something wrong on one of their products, we're not shy about pointing them out.

I know, I'm just thinking that mentioning how much uncontested (and thourogh) press asus gets, might sway other manufaturers somewhat

Tobias wrote:I know, I'm just thinking that mentioning how much uncontested (and thourogh) press asus gets, might sway other manufaturers somewhat

Hopefully sway them into sending silentpcreview.com MORE products to test.

Have to admit, I'm not sure why so few of the other board makers send us stuff. Sometimes we even ask!

I've been wanting you guys to review the ASUS P5N7A-VM for quite some time. The 730i/GeForce 9300 is a really good chipset for the Intel platform. I was planning on getting one, but price-wise it's just not worth it. Lowest in Canada atm is like $140! Almost 60$ more than AMD's 780G motherboards

Wouldn't it make sense to do IGP tests with dual channel memory? You are reducing the overall bandwidth available to the graphics solution.

Nice chipset, definitely promising. Hopefully you can get lower power boards with the same chipset, maybe in the mini itx form factor. (Since mini itx boards are designed for lower power processors and less cooling, with the mini-itx DG45FC being well ahead of other mobos with the same chipset.)

Seconding autoboy, I would use dual channel with low power memory sticks unless you need to compare with previous tests, since that's the configuration most people will be using the board with.

Another note to mention, even after thier obvious improvements, is the need for vista for dx10 and the shader 4.0 stuff. (That is where I am currently standing my ground with xP and losing a little bit...)

Staying where you are if content enough might be a good idea to wait for windows 7....

Zenphic wrote:I was planning on getting one, but price-wise it's just not worth it. Lowest in Canada atm is like $140! Almost 60$ more than AMD's 780G motherboards

Consider it an Intel "tax."

Wouldn't it make sense to do IGP tests with dual channel memory? You are reducing the overall bandwidth available to the graphics solution.

We do 3DMark with 2GB in dual channel, but for video playback it doesn't make any difference.

Hi,
thank you very much for an excellent review I am(was) a bit confused about FSB and multipliers for the intel core 2 duo processors. I thought that the multiplier was locked, but it seems that the multiplier is not locked on the wolfdale core. I wonder how much the power consumption would decrease if the FSB was clocked at 800Mhz instead of 1066Mhz? Is this board capable of 1080p playback with the FSB at 800Mhz?

best regards,
Øyvin Eikeland

oyvine wrote:Hi,
thank you very much for an excellent review I am(was) a bit confused about FSB and multipliers for the intel core 2 duo processors. I thought that the multiplier was locked, but it seems that the multiplier is not locked on the wolfdale core. I wonder how much the power consumption would decrease if the FSB was clocked at 800Mhz instead of 1066Mhz? Is this board capable of 1080p playback with the FSB at 800Mhz?

best regards,
Øyvin Eikeland

The multiplier is locked at a maximum value. You can drop it, but not raise it.
Dropping the FSB probably wouldn't save much power, but would cost you a lot of performance even if the CPU could be run at normal clocks.

oyvine wrote:I wonder how much the power consumption would decrease if the FSB was clocked at 800Mhz instead of 1066Mhz? Is this board capable of 1080p playback with the FSB at 800Mhz?

The underclocked test results were at 800MHz effective FSB with a total clock speed of 1.2GHz (200MHz x 6) @ 0.93125V.

Am I missing something, or there was no mention of the Hybrid Power feature in the article?
If the 9300 / 9400 chipset supports Hybrid Power, it would have been nice to test it with: 9800 GT, 9800 GTX+ and GTX 260.

Tzupy wrote:Am I missing something, or there was no mention of the Hybrid Power feature in the article?
If the 9300 / 9400 chipset supports Hybrid Power, it would have been nice to test it with: 9800 GT, 9800 GTX+ and GTX 260.

It doesn't - would have been cool (not a pun) if it did, though. I can't see why they left out the feature - there is really no reason for that.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_ge ... pu_us.html