[mythtv-users] Motherboard Recommendation needed

[Jeff Walther]

> Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:15:05 +0100
> From: Duncan Brown <mythtv at duncb.co.uk>

> The specs I am looking for are:
>
>     * Onboard graphics good enough for HD - guess that means an nVidia
>       chipset?
>     * 3 PCI slots - this is the most important bit, and the hardest to
>       find it seems
>
> If anyone has any recommendations I'd be very grateful, I really need
> the 3 PCI slots minimum for all my tuner cards

I just finished selecting a motherboard for my MythTV backend with 4 tuner
cards.  I recommend that you drop the requirement for on-board graphics,
and find a board with 3 or more PCI slots and one PCIe X16 slot at a
minimum.  That way you can just add a PCIe X16 video card such as the
Zotac 7300GT card at Newegg for $30 (had a $10 rebate last month which
made it $20).

Your choices will still be fairly limited, but at least you'll be out of
the realm of the non-existent.

I picked up the MSI P45 Neo3-FR which has 4 PCI slots, and one each X1 and
X16 PCIe slots.   It also has 8 SATA channels.   Unfortunately, I have not
been able to squeeze any time out of real-life to assemble my machine yet,
so I cannot report on how well or poorly it works.

There is a P35 based motherboard made by Gigabyte which is very similar
except it has 5 PCI slots and only four SATA channels.  Both boards have
only 1 UATA channel (2 drives total).

Jeff Walther