Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI
Conclusion
The performance of the Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI was very impressive. Using the new chipset eliminates the need for more basic users to get graphic cards. If the user is not into gaming or dealing with 3D environments, there is no need to get an additional graphics cards, as the onboard performs good enough. If you are interested in using an additional graphics card, then i would suggest getting the ATI Radeon 3450, a cost of $40. With the ATI 3450 your system would work in what is called Hybrid Crossfire, using both the onboard and discrete card to render the output.
The M3A78-EMH HDMI provides a very nice home theatre environment as it has the HDMI cable and supports 1080p. Only downfall of using it as a home theatre pc is that if you do not want to using the audio output from the HDMI cable, then you are going to have to purchase a discrete sound card because there is no coaxial or optical output on the motherboard. A plus is that the new AMD 780G supports AMD Live, which is where you are going to get the majority of your home theatre experience. Overall this mircoATX motherboard will fit into your home theatre case with no problem and offer amazing performance.
Being priced at only $94.99*, the motherboard is reasonably priced for its performance. For those of you who want to have a high performing and low cost / power usage processor I would recommend the AMD Athlon X2 4800 for only $76*. And if you are looking for higher graphical performance, the ATI 3450 is the way to go because of the Hybrid Crossfire Support, and it only costs $39.99*. So for under $300, you can have a low cost energy efficient high performance computer.
* : All prices are based off of newegg.com on April 10, 2008.
