J&W may not be the first motherboard manufacturer that comes to mind, but it has managed to scoop out a niche 780G mini-ITX board with its iPartner "Control Centre" that sits outside the case.
The iPartner features a power and reset button, as well as an eight digital LCD readout and Bluetooth built in - this allows you to connect a wireless keyboard or mouse directly to it, which is perfect for kicking back on the sofa and controlling your HTPC remotely.
The board features DVI, HDMI and VGA, both types of S/PDIF out, eSATA, four SATA, plenty of USB, Gigabit Ethernet and all solid aluminium capacitors. Most notably though it's the only 780G we've yet seen that has a 128MB frame buffer for extra GPU performance, although there's even a PCI-Express x16 slot if you want some serious graphic horsepower.
Both the north and south bridges are passively cooled by the same heatsink, and even the CPU PWMs get some heatsinking too - none of it was hot to touch as it played back a HD movie.
The only downside of this board was the fact you have to use SO-DIMMs, however it would be physically impossible to use DIMM slots and SO-DIMMs aren't that expensive, plus, you really don't even need dual channel for HTPC boards and general productivity.
There was no comment on price and availability yet though. Interested? Let us know your thoughts, in the forums.
The iPartner features a power and reset button, as well as an eight digital LCD readout and Bluetooth built in - this allows you to connect a wireless keyboard or mouse directly to it, which is perfect for kicking back on the sofa and controlling your HTPC remotely.
The board features DVI, HDMI and VGA, both types of S/PDIF out, eSATA, four SATA, plenty of USB, Gigabit Ethernet and all solid aluminium capacitors. Most notably though it's the only 780G we've yet seen that has a 128MB frame buffer for extra GPU performance, although there's even a PCI-Express x16 slot if you want some serious graphic horsepower.
Both the north and south bridges are passively cooled by the same heatsink, and even the CPU PWMs get some heatsinking too - none of it was hot to touch as it played back a HD movie.
The only downside of this board was the fact you have to use SO-DIMMs, however it would be physically impossible to use DIMM slots and SO-DIMMs aren't that expensive, plus, you really don't even need dual channel for HTPC boards and general productivity.
There was no comment on price and availability yet though. Interested? Let us know your thoughts, in the forums.
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