Abit I-N73HD (nForce 630i) Motherboard Manufacturer Abit Category Motherboard Socket Socket 775 LGA Chipset Nvidia nForce 630i Geforce  7100 - DDR2 Editor Winston Chim Share    digg this! "...The Abit I-N73HD offers excellent connectivity and it's perfect for any user wanting to experiment with building a HTPC system. "

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A motherboard designed for HTPC / Media Centre PC. The Abit I-N73HD offers integrated Geforce 7100 graphics with onboard HDMI.

INTRODUCTION

At the Cebit 2008 exhibition, there was a lot of emphasis on HTPCs and media centre PCs. So much so, a lot of manufacturers have decided to develope and introduce new motherboards with integrated graphics such as the AMD 780G based motherboard. But alot of them already have motherboards with integrated graphics using Nvidia's nForce 630i/7100 chipset. And in this review we will be taking a look at such a motherboard ... Abit's I-N37HD.

This motherboard is deisgned and aimed at the budget/mainstream market, and it's an ideal motherboard solution for any HTPC or media centre PC user or system integrator. The Abit I-N37HD utilises Nvidia's nForce 630i/7100 chipset, which is a single chip solution and offers integrated graphics with performance equivalent to a Geforce 7100. It uses system memory for its video memory buffer and can be configured from 64MB upto 256Mb. Other features include support for DX9 and HDMI interface. In terms of connectivity it's got everthing, you get 4 x USB, firewire, gigabit ethernet, D-sub (15-pin vga), SPDIF optical, and HD audio connectors.

The main focus of this motherboard is the support for high definiton video, and high definition multi-channel audio through its HDMI interface. HDMI is the preferred standard for connection any HD compatible device, so this year we will see a lot of components with support for HDMI. The board comes in a micro ATX form factor, so it's ideal for any HTPC chassis.

Don't expect top gaming performance from the integrated graphics ... it's not designed for it. Hoewever, the motherboard does have a space PCIe (x16) slot for a separate additional graphics card of your choice ... thus improving graphics performance for games. The overall performance may not be ideal for the medium to high-end user, but it should appeal to the "Digital Home" DIYers.

Ok, let's not waste any more time and take a closer look at the specifications.