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Allthough this mATX board is very small, it cannot be used as a basis for a HTPC, as was mentioned in the introduction, this is a 'legacy' motherboard without modern connectors like DVI and HDMI.
When considering the (low) price of this board it overclocked quite good, one of the disadvantages of the M4N78-AM is that it does not support CPUs above 95 watts Thermal Design Power,
so you cannot upgrade your processor to let's say a 3.4GHz Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition.
The M4N78-VM only costs a few euros/dollars more and we would certainly go for the VM if you consider all the extras like DVI, HDMI, Optical Audio Out, OC DDR2 1200MHz and most important upgrading to any other Athlon II - Phenom II is possible.
In case you'll have to buy new memory it's perhaps better to look for a motherboard with DDR3 memory, ASUS recently upgraded their GeForce 7025 M2N68 DDR2 series with the M4N68T for DDR3, perhaps the same will happen with the GeForce 8200 in the near future.
Pros:
- Overclocks relatively well.
Cons:
- No support for processors above 95w TDP.
- No DVI.
- No HDMI.
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