Reviews - MSI 880GMA-E45 motherboard. The new budget king?

[HEXUS]

We shine the review spotlight on AMD's 880G chipset and see how well MSI has done with it.

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[blaunchb]

I'm interested in building an HTPC. Would this be a good board? I would like to see an extra test in these reviews involving the decoding and display of live video streams, such as BBC, Eurosport and MLB.
Thanks
Brian

[cjs150]

As an HTPC board I have severe doubts but maybe a bit more testing will proof me wrong:

1. What is power draw when it is in sleep (s3?) mode and what wakes it up. For example what a good HTPC board should do is draw very little power but wake up a designated time to record a TV programme using a TV tuner. The alternative is to have it on all the time but drawing very little power.

2. How is sound outputted. If running an HTPC ideally I want the sound through the HDMI cable to the AV receiver - I can use other connectors but do not want the hassle.

Personally I would go with a Mini ITX board, maybe ATOM or ION