vondoogle Posted February 3, 2009 Posted February 3, 2009 Guys, I have decided to get rid of my Asus P5E-VM HDMI MB and replace it with something decent. Looking for some recommendations on the m/b and Video card front. I will be keeping the intel E8500 CPU so looking for a socket 775 MB. Anyone have any recommendations? I am looking at getting smooth playback on DVB-S2 HD and Mpeg2 HD transmissions. I have the Technotrend 3200 budget PCI card for the sat side. Vondoogle Quote
vondoogle Posted February 5, 2009 Author Posted February 5, 2009 Ok, what about a recommendation for a video card then, I need something that's got going to work well without stressing the CPU to much? Frenchman Quote
entrecour Posted February 5, 2009 Posted February 5, 2009 I haven't tried it personally but the ASUS P5N7A-VM looks interesting. Quote
kingskintim Posted February 5, 2009 Posted February 5, 2009 I run a 9800GT 512 (720p projector hence lowish resolution). I picked it up for just under £100 and it's a wicked card - Im a gamer so if you dont want to spend that much then just go to the nvidia website and look for anything which has HD support.... Quote
kingskintim Posted February 5, 2009 Posted February 5, 2009 as for MB, how much do you want to spend? Asus make great boards. I went for the p45 chipset which is nice but expensive.... Quote
starzax Posted February 5, 2009 Posted February 5, 2009 I have the Asus P5N7A-VM, C2D E8500 and a WinTV-HVR 4000 DVB-T, S2 combo card. Over all I think the Asus board works well and I can watch HD channels with no problems. There are a couple of issues I would like to mention. -It only has 4 USB ports on the backside and does not come with an external bracket to connect to the internal USB ports. This may or may not be an issue. -I think the small passive heatsink for the 730i chipset/gforce 9300 GPU is a bit inadequate. With a room temperature of 20°C the GPU would often go past 80°C. Please note that this never made the board crash/show graphic artifacts. As I want a stable, well cooled PC I solved this by mounting a Thermalright HR-05 IFX chipsetcooler next to the 120mm fan on my Thermalright HR-01 Plus CPU cooler. Since then the GPU has never gone past 40°C (and neither does the CPU cores, which most of the time stays a few degrees above room temperature). Quote
vondoogle Posted February 5, 2009 Author Posted February 5, 2009 (edited) Thanks for the replies chaps, I will look into that video card. I was looking to spend around the £100 mark for the M/B, I am guessing that the better the video card then the less able the M/B needs to be? My current board is ok but struggles with the S2 high bitrate stuff and stuttering playback, it's also a little buggy although it has no problem with Bluray, the M/B doen't need to be MATX, I just got the ASUS MATX M/B because I was planning on installing it into a small case but then changed my mind. I tend to often get BSOD and suspect the memory is dodgy, but I am suspicious also of this P5E-VM HDMI and it's G35 intel graphics set as it behaves strangely sometimes. I really want to get a solid board/video card combo to rebuild my HTPC. Vondoogle Edited February 5, 2009 by vondoogle Quote
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