I’m in the market to build a new gaming PC, and would like it to be
reasonably transportable for lan parties. It will also double as a
home theater PC. The nForce boards are interesting in that they appear
to have the ability to encode a Dolby Digital stream from D3D audio.
This would be great for games since my receiver does not have discrete
analog inputs for 5-channel sound.
I’m wondering if someone can recommend a good Micro-ATX nForce
motherboard that includes optical or coax out, DD encoding, and 400
Mhz fsb?
Thanks!
Offhand, I can’t think of one, and a quick look-see over at Newegg didn’t turn up anything. FYI, though, the Dolby stuff you want goes by the name of Soundstorm. A lot of nForce boards have onboard sound but do not use Soundstorm, so watch out for that. Soundstorm, naturally, is more expensive, and, incidentally, is supposed to be on par with the Audigy line in terms of sound quality.
Check out the Shuttle XPC SN45G SFF PC. It’s the size of a breadbox, uses nForce2 Ultra 400 with Soundstorm onboard sound (meaning it supports Dolby Digital Encoding), and supports normal AGP videocards. For $230 you get the case, motherboard, power supply, custom cooling unit, and custom data cables.
Add an Athlon XP 2800+ Barton, 512MB Dual-channel DDR400 RAM, WD Special Edition 120GB HDD, Lite-On LDW-811S 8X DVD-RW drive, Radeon 9800 Pro, and Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP Deluxe TV/FM tuner. You now have a godlike gaming and multimedia system that takes up very little space.
FYI, you can tell if an nForce2 motherboard has Soundstorm by checking which southbridge chipset it uses. Soundstorm-equipped motherboards use the MCP2-T (often just called MCP-T) southbridge, boards without Soundstorm just have MCP2/MCP (no-T).