Motherboard

New platforms are particularly interesting to us as home theater PC (HTPC) enthusiasts because it gives us a chance to clearly see how a generation of progress can be transformed into tangible benefits.  Not long ago, integrated graphics processors (IGP) were strictly the choice of budget-minded consumers, but the recent relocation of the graphics processing unit (GPU) from the chipset to the processor made it a “first-class” citizen and brought new life to the solution while birthing a new concept – integrated processor graphics (IPG).  AMD was not the first to release an IPG, or APU (accelerated processing unit) as they refer to it, but with the introduction of the Brazos/Zacate line earlier this year, a glimpse of Lynx/Llano’s promise became available.   As a platform aimed at the ultra-portable market, Zacate demands significant compromise for use as a dedicated HTPC.  Llano’s mainstream desktop orientation, combining a full featured GPU and capable CPU, should address those tradeoffs with enough headroom and flexibility to provide solutions along the spectrum of client and server HTPC.  As we have with Intel’s Sandy Bridge family of IPGs, we plan to evaluate each step in AMD’s lineup – starting today with the 65W 2.4 GHz A8-3800,coupled with a GIGABYTE A75M-UD2H microATX motherboard.

Over the last several weeks we had the pleasure of testing the new Intel Mini-ITX Media Series Motherboard, dubbed the DH61AG. This is what I consider to be the first truly HTPC-centric motherboard.  Since the first integrated graphics processing unit (iGPU) with HDMI output was introduced we have heard boards coined as the “the perfect HTPC board” or “HTPC nirvana.”  Is the DH61AG the real thing?  Before we get into that let us give you a first look through a few unique features of the DH61AG and why I am excited about it.  In typical Missing Remote fashion, we will publish a full review as soon as possible. (See Intel DH61AG Media Series Mini-ITX Motherboard and Core i5-2390T)

In our launch coverage of Intel’s Sandy Bridge we took an in-depth tour of the platform’s capabilities.  But our previous coverage was limited to a higher end member of the CPU lineup with a 95 watt TDP, that made is less ideal for dedicated home theater PC (HTPC) use--especially considering its tantalizing siblings scheduled to arrive shortly thereafter. Fortunately we now have a 35 watt Intel Core i3-2100T and DH67CF Mini-ITX motherboard in hand and will be taking a detailed look at the lowest powered desktop CPU and smallest LGA1155 motherboard Intel has to offer.

When Intel gambled by packaging its graphics processing unit (GPU) with the central processing unit (CPU) in last year’s Clarkdale the home theater PC (HTPC) niche benefited immensely from the power saving, performance gain and features like HD audio bit streaming provided by the new platform.  The bet obviously paid off, because this year’s Sandy Bridge melds the GPU and CPU on the same die promising significant performance improvements for both units, dedicated transcode hardware, further reductions in TDP and frame sequential 3D Blu-ray (BD)/HDMI 1.4 support.  As good as Clarkdale was it was not perfect however, with issues in the level of refresh rate precision used to playback video content - most notably using 24Hz instead of 23.976Hz to handle 24p.  Today we are fortunate to have an Intel Core i5-2500K CPU/GPU and DH67BL motherboard on hand to find out if Sandy Bridge is a worthy successor and viable competitor to the last twelve months of progress in our marketplace.