The little MSI AMD 785GM-E65 is a micro-ATX board with some nice features and a predicted MSRP of well under $100.  There were a few corners cut to make the board truly affordable as a basis for an HTPC, such as only a 4+1 phase array instead of MSI’s Dr.MOS technology and the use of an SB710 southbridge which does not support RAID5.  If you are planning on building an HTPC using RAID5, you are doing it wrong.  Check out Josh’s preview to see the old school overclocking dipstick that can be found on a motherboard for the first time in ages.

“FedEX has been busy as of late delivering to my house, and today I received a gem from them. This micro-ATX motherboard based on the unreleased AMD 785G chipset is a shockingly complete motherboard with many high end components. Stuff usually relegated to full size ATX boards. Will this be the latest power-user micro-ATX board, and furthermore be the board of choice for HTPC users? More testing is needed to confirm that, but the first look is certainly impressive.”

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