Motherboard and/or Processor recommendation, Thoughts on a first HTPC build

[injumnmab]

I've got in mind a gameplan for a new HTPC build, but was hoping for some feedback.

Because of its price and reviews, I believe I've settled on an AMD Athlon II X4 630 Propus processor (AM3 socket, Quad-core). If any objections, speak now or forever hold your peace. My dilema is what motherboard to pair it with. I do like the Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H, but that appears to be discontinued. To save a few dollars, I like the idea of a good onboard video option with HDMI, which this one had. I will be doing no gaming, but only media playback and streaming and internet access.

Any MB recommendations out there that may be similar to the specs of the Gigabyte I mention above? I'd love to be able to keep it around $100, give or take just a little. Thanks in advance.

[obseceThittee]

A quad core might be a bit overkill for most HTPC's. Put the money towards a good mid-class, low-power dual core and a decent graphics card to offload some video decoding work from the CPU. It's rare that a quad is fully utilized unless you are encoding video, in that case a quad can speed things up. But for playback most of the cores will be idle, unused.

Clockspeed wins over cores in most HTPC's. Not that you need the highest clocked dual core, but a dual core clocked higher than a quad will generally give you better performance.