MSI: SLI Plus Eight

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• LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - link

  There are TV tuner cards based on ATI's Theater 550 chip, Powercolor makes one, details can be found here:
  
  http://www.powercolor.com/product_series_Theater.h...">http://www.powercolor.com/product_series_Theater.h...

• Gary Key - Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - link

  We are currently reviewing the Powercolor T55E-P03 for an upcoming HTPC article. I think the results against the PCI cards will be interesting. ;-)

• LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - link

  From what I've heard, there's little or no difference in performance. However, the Powercolor would be the card I'd consider for future-proofness.
  
  My only disappointment is it doesn't use ATI's Remote Wonder line of remote controls; they include an iR remote of their own choosing instead of the ATI RF model, IIRC.

• nullpointerus - Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - link

  Interesting, how? Better, worse, wierd, or just unspecified in a frustratingly vague kind of way? ;-)

• Gary Key - Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - link

  quote:
  

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  nteresting, how? Better, worse, wierd, or just unspecified in a frustratingly vague kind of way? ;-)

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  Actual throughput was different than the PCI based card, not trying to be vague but I think the article we are putting together will explain it best, new benchmarks, software versus hardware, TV Tuners- single, dual, SD, and HD, single core CPU , dual core CPU, AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, ATI, MCE2005, Linux, PCI, PCI-E, USB, you know just the basics. ;-)

• nullpointerus - Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - link

  Cool, thanks. I'm looking forward to reading it.

• ceefka - Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - link

  quote:
  

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  It's surprising that so few companies opt for the faster IEEE 1394B standard, as the price difference can be very large.

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  I don't quite get this one. I can imagine it would say something like 1394b can be had on a s939 Gigabyte board for less than $ 100,00 e.g. GA-K8NF9 Ultra. It seems Gigabyte is the only one with 1394b for s939.
  
  Fact is though that there are few F800 devices out there. If you do have one of these, your mobo options are limited.

• JarredWalton - Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - link

  It should have been "can't be very large" of course. I'm a bit befuddled on how that slipped in there, because I know I corrected that once before. Must have accidentally pasted over the original text at some point.... Ah, well - fixed now regardless.

• Myrandex - Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - link

  I agree too, there is no reason for manufacturer's to not include this. Firewire B devices will not be mass produced without the users with Firewire B ports. I have a Giga-byte s939 SLI mobo with Firewire B on there and I do want to purchase an external enclosure that supports the standard (along with A and USB), but I also wish we would get some highly OCable boards from the likes of Asus or Abit etc. that provides this feature for the future. And also I believe the article is wrong about the price difference being very large, or else you wouldn't see Giga-byte squeezing these into ~$100 boards with other manufacturer's at the same price point including only A (or no firewire at all).
  Jason

• Duplex - Friday, April 14, 2006 - link

  1394B to the people!!! Couldn't agree more!
  
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  I also must give credit to MSI for including a parallel and serial port.
  There aren't that many people with a printerserver or USB-printer at home (I think).