Ok, so now that it's out, I can say a few things: (1) The 780G on AMD's end is maybe one of the more impressive chipsets I've seen in a very long time. We've been giving it a run on a few of our monitors using the Asus MB, and have found it pretty stunning what kind of performance you can get. Even using a simple (read: CHEAP) 3800+ X2, we had no problems running BlueRay discs at full acceleration to a 61" Samsung DLP. Video is fast, smooth, and power usage is very low..
(2) Putting this thing in a micro case works, which is an advantage. (3) I'm not sure about the market for "Oh, combine to a 3450 and do Hybrid SLI. First, it only works under Vista SP1, which will be primarily new PCS (fine, and BTW, when it is available to public download it's worth it) (4) Now we have to see what Intel responds with. Nvidia's already kind of boned themselves, the 9800 series is delayed (AGAIN), and the 8200 IGP is both behind and, by their projections will be at least 15% slower then the 780G. Intel's G35 looks particularly putrid in comparison For those looking to do a Media Center box, this is the best combo I've seen. The chipset has it all - Full HDMI 1.3 support with DTS Master Audio, TrueHD capability, Blueray decoding at low CPU usage on even a cheap ass CPU, and tons of SATA ports for drives. While AMD has been in the doldrums on their CPU side, it's good to see something positive over there going on. CW
