Asus P5N7A-VM

This motherboard works well as a frontend and backend combination. Supports VDPAU. According to silentpcreview.com, this board is very power efficient.

Specs

• Brand ASUS - Model P5N7A-VM
  • CPU Socket Type LGA 775
  • CPU Type Quad-core / Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo / Pentium - FSB 133/600MHz
  • North Bridge NVIDIA nForce 730i SLI
  • Ports and Slots
    • Memory Slots 4×240pin - DDR2 800 - Up to 16GB - Dual Channel Supported
    • PCI Express x16 = 1
    • PCI Express x1 = 1
    • PCI Slots = 2
    • PATA 1 x ATA100 2 Dev. Max
    • SATA 3Gb/s 5
    • SATA RAID NV RAID 0/1/0+1/5 JBOD
    • Onboard Video NVidia GeForce 9300
    • Audio Chipset Realtek ALC1200 - 8 Channels
    • Onboard LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
  • Rear Panel Ports
    • PS/2 1
    • USB 6 x USB 2.0
    • S/PDIF Out 1x Optical, 1x Coaxial
    • DP 1
    • HDMI 1
    • VGA 1
    • DVI 1
    • eSATA 1
    • LAN 1
    • Audio Ports 8 Channel Audio I/O
    • Onboard USB 3 x USB connectors support additional 6 USB ports
    • S/PDIF Out 1
  • Form Factor ATX - Dimensions 12.0" x 9.6"

Turning on SPDIF

At the command line, run alsamixer. Go to the right and hit M when you are over iec958, then hit Esc.

Audio support

ALC1200 is supported in 2.6.28. Add the following to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.

 options snd-hda-intel model=6stack-dig

While ALC1200 is not supported in 2.6.20, it still works. Make the same change to alsa-base file as above.

VDPAU support

VDPAU is available.

When the front end is running, mythfrontend.real runs at about 3-7% CPU, with Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz. Power consumption is about 60W when frontend is playing. This may be a bit high, compared to some of the Silent PC Review numbers below.

Mythbuntu settings 8.04 x64

/etc/asound.conf contains:

 pcm.!default {
  type hw
  card 0
  device 1
 }

• Here are my settings for mythfrontend General Setup.
  • AUDIO OUTPUT DEVICE = ALSA:default
  • PASSTHROUGH OUTPUT DEVICE = Default
  • MAX AUDIO CHANNELS = stereo
  • UPMIX = passive
  • X=Enable AC3 to SPDIF Passthrough
  • X=Enable DTS to SPDIF Passthrough
  • _=Aggressive Sound Card Buffering
  • _=Use internal Volume Controls

The max audio channels is set to stereo, the pass through is not limited to stereo.

Other areas to examine

Reducing voltage may reduce power consumption.

References

Silent PC Review