Re: What would make a good UHD HTPC
Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2021 11:14 pm
In the past few years, chasing certain feature sets has led me repeatedly to Asrock. Primarily, Asrock seems to be one of the few to commonly feature onboard 10 Gb NIC, though that's by no mean an exclusive feature. Since that was one of my must-have features, Asrock is often my go-to brand.
But other than that, I don't really have a preference. My current HTPC is running MSI. I like Gigabit and ASUS too. Basically, I decide what features are important to me (i.e. chipset, mem slots, ports, etc.), filter by those criteria, then sort by reviews. Then I buy the one that has the "most best" reviews - i.e. I ignore the 5-star MB with just 1 review, and instead go for the 4.5 star MB that has 129 reviews, because that's what people are actually buying and you can [better] trust the rating. Of course, I also value shop too. MB's are getting ridiculously expensive, but for HTPC use you really don't need any of those bells and whistles. I normally stay in the $100-200 range, though I eagerly spend less when possible, and begrudgingly spend more when required. Often, those more expensive motherboards are simply adding features that you will never ever use (i.e. better overclocking, more M.2, more USB, enhanced cooling, RGB.
I also find it important to read the reviews too. Often a MB will have a feature that causes buyers to lower their rating, but that feature happens to be unimportant to you. For example, maybe the onboard RAID features don't work right, but you aren't going to use RAID anyway, so you can disregard those negative reviews since they don't affect you. The reviews that scare me away are the DOA or "failed after 2 months" type reviews. When I narrow it down to a handful of boards, I often try to read reviews from multiple sources, i.e. Newegg and Amazon and elsewhere. Sometimes you'll find a product reviewed highly in one place, but lowly elsewhere. I lean towards products that seem to get lots of good reviews from multiple sources. I know, I know - scammers be scamming with fake reviews no matter what, but I really don't know what else to do.
Also, pick out your memory last, after picking out the MB, and make sure the memory is listed on the MB's QVL for memory. In my experience, this can be one of the most important factors, preventing memory related headaches.
I know one of the features you're chasing is HDMI 2.1 that the 11th gen chips have - do you homework and make sure any motherboard you're considering also supports it. Sometimes these features require both CPU and MB to support the feature before it works. No idea if that applies here.
Regarding size, both Micro ATX and Mini ITX are fine. I went Micro ATX, mainly because there were more options and they were less expensive than the Mini ITX's.
But other than that, I don't really have a preference. My current HTPC is running MSI. I like Gigabit and ASUS too. Basically, I decide what features are important to me (i.e. chipset, mem slots, ports, etc.), filter by those criteria, then sort by reviews. Then I buy the one that has the "most best" reviews - i.e. I ignore the 5-star MB with just 1 review, and instead go for the 4.5 star MB that has 129 reviews, because that's what people are actually buying and you can [better] trust the rating. Of course, I also value shop too. MB's are getting ridiculously expensive, but for HTPC use you really don't need any of those bells and whistles. I normally stay in the $100-200 range, though I eagerly spend less when possible, and begrudgingly spend more when required. Often, those more expensive motherboards are simply adding features that you will never ever use (i.e. better overclocking, more M.2, more USB, enhanced cooling, RGB.
I also find it important to read the reviews too. Often a MB will have a feature that causes buyers to lower their rating, but that feature happens to be unimportant to you. For example, maybe the onboard RAID features don't work right, but you aren't going to use RAID anyway, so you can disregard those negative reviews since they don't affect you. The reviews that scare me away are the DOA or "failed after 2 months" type reviews. When I narrow it down to a handful of boards, I often try to read reviews from multiple sources, i.e. Newegg and Amazon and elsewhere. Sometimes you'll find a product reviewed highly in one place, but lowly elsewhere. I lean towards products that seem to get lots of good reviews from multiple sources. I know, I know - scammers be scamming with fake reviews no matter what, but I really don't know what else to do.
Also, pick out your memory last, after picking out the MB, and make sure the memory is listed on the MB's QVL for memory. In my experience, this can be one of the most important factors, preventing memory related headaches.
I know one of the features you're chasing is HDMI 2.1 that the 11th gen chips have - do you homework and make sure any motherboard you're considering also supports it. Sometimes these features require both CPU and MB to support the feature before it works. No idea if that applies here.
Regarding size, both Micro ATX and Mini ITX are fine. I went Micro ATX, mainly because there were more options and they were less expensive than the Mini ITX's.