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Core 2 duo vs Core 2 Duo mobile

Nixeh

Nixeh

Nixeh

Associate
Joined
3 Jun 2005
Posts
874
Location
Bristol/Portsmouth, England
Heya guys. Looking into building a mini-itx system but can only seem to find decent boards that only support Core 2 duo mobile and not desktop cpus. Just wondering what the ups and downs of going to the mobile version over the desktop are. And is there really much difference between them.

Ive had a gander on the net but cant find anything that has really answered my question.
 
Both a project to give me something to do and a main system.

Im currently running on a matx system in a lian-li v300 cube but its still too big. I LAN quite a bit aswell so mini-itx would be dead handy.

I know a mini-itx with a c2d mobile chip would be one of the fastest mini-itx systems out there but i wanna know how it would compare performance wise with a c2d desktop 775 chip system of the same spec.

Ill upload some pics of what ill be doing with the system so you can get some idea of what i mean
 
Yes gaming is a plan of mine which is why i would ideally wait for mini-itx or mini-dtx boards (if intel released on the form factor) for a desktop cpu for more bruteforce power.
 
heres the layout for the small powerhouse pc i would like to make.

It accomodates full length cards and atx psu but still smaller then matx systems.

PC Layout

As some people might notice, with this design it can accomodate both mini-itx and mini-dtx standards as the gfx takes up 2 slots anyway.

Sadly there arent any high quality psu's out in sff form factor that would really be able to power it safely, but then that doesnt bother me as i dont really wanna get rid of my lovely 600w Seasonic
 
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BoomAM said:
Mini-ITX and gaming dont really go together.
Unless you can find one with a PCI-E x16 slot. And then that'd sorta defeat the idea of ITX then due to the size of a 'gaming' gfx card.
But if you can build what your picture suggests, i'd be very interested in reading the project log for it. :).
Click to expand...

Well yeah this is one thing that annoyed me about it. People always saying theyre not made for gaming, i can remember the same being said about matx and now more and more gamers are going towards a smaller case with smaller footprint and volume.

Size of the pc is always dependant on the size of the motherboard. The smaller the motherboard the smaller the overall size can be. For me i dont use pci or pci-e 1x slots (though i currently have a audigy zs2 in mine). The days where sound and networking were on expansion cards are quickly fading away, as cpu's can take the brunt of resource needed. Onboard chipsets, audio and networking are better then theyve been in a long while and i dont see that trend ending.

Also with smaller volume, if the case and layout is created correctly, it means that the pc can bring in cool air, expel hot air faster and quieter as its a more direct path.

I really do think on current gen hardware, matx could become a standard if there were better cases.
 
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Well i work at a pc manufacturer so i can get components at a nice discount including the mobile chips.

Though im torn between 2 motherboards.

Kontron board
This one is better but runs on mobile chip which im not sure about

PEB-760 Board
This one says socket 775 but im not sure if it supports c2d :(

Both of which have pci-e 16x

Which do you think i should go for, anyone know if all 775 sockets support c2d?

Anyone know if theres quad core coming out on mobile chips before years end?
 
theres a difference between core duo and core 2 duo. thats whatr im not sure about
 
Ace, didnt want to assume so and then buy it and realise it wasnt compatible :(

Would it be compatible with the new quads?
 
Yeah all depends when i buy it. I doubt ill be putting this system together until christmas/new year but im scouting out now to see what could be on the market by then, seeing as mini-itx isnt the fastest moving form factor..... sadly
 
Well if you like small systems then i suggest you visit SFFTech.

Im a member on it under the same name and its a nice small community for fans of small form factors.

Im heading to a computer show tomorrow and hoping i can find some nice mini-itx mobos that can power good systems.

Ive stumbled upon another good motherboard that is used within one of HP's Slimeline systems.

IPILP-AR

It lacks on the 4gb memory support and on the sata front but apart from that you can get the latest pci-e card in there and a nice big hard drive with a dvd drive and youre pretty much sorted.

Im hoping to buy it for my brothers next system and custom build a case for it to show that mini-itx/mini-dtx systems can be just as powerful as full atx systems. Also gives me practice before i work on mine
 
Yeah, thats why i think a lot of people automatically turn away from mini-itx. Mini-itx is the new micro-atx, and i believe atx is far to big and mainly useless for the majority of pc users.
 
Yeah im currently running on a MATX in a v300 but i still want it to be smaller, and frankly the case hasnt utilised the space that well... even though i do like the case.

Anyway just encase you want more links to mini-itx boards ive compiled a list here..... SFFTech Mini-ITX Forum Post

Anyway, has anyone found out if theres much difference between C2D desktop and C2D Mobile, performance wise
 
And the bus speed, it might not be much but i still dont know how much of a real world performance hit it gives me
 
Yeah ive seen these Shuttle-esque cases before, but they dont really appeal to me as i think theyre badly layed out and also theres not much you can actually do with them. also if i was going to buy a shuttle-esque case, i might aswell just buy a shuttle. We have quite a few matd and minitx cases here at work, but sadly none of them really cater to what i would like to do. Most are about right on 2 of the dimensions but then a lot larger or far to short on another, which rules out getting a prebuilt chassis, gutting the inside and modding it.

Hopefully ill get some time this week at work to layout the components to get an idea of real world size. Ill get some pics for you and post em on here.

Im not sure about the clocking options. Im hoping there will be at least some there to help overclock a quad core. My boss has emailed Portwell to find out about one of those motherboards on that list as i can get them discounted + vat free through our company. When they reply ill ask them what the clocking options are like and post what they say on here.

Im slightly getting worried that this topic is now drifting into SFF sections rather then CPU section... but then the SFF section is always dead.
 
Yeah the LV-676 was one of the boards i linked to within that link on here. I should be building this system at the end of the year so im hoping more powerful motherboards coming out.
 
Yeah im still waiting on the pricing of the PEB boards at work.

Still leaning towards the Core2Duo Desktop seeing as youll most likely pay a premium for the board and for the mobile chip. But with a desktop cpu you will only paying extra for the mobo.
 
Yes i have just read the email and replied to it. Didnt realise you guys were taking notice, but always nice to know. It is a shame that you do not have both a mobile and a desktop variant of the same board, but its an even bigger shame that you cannot sell them to individuals.

Its about £100. But remember when its $200 in the states, it normally means it will be £200 here. Sadly this always happens in regards to computer parts here.... we always get a raw deal.

There might be hope though. I goto Chicago to visit friends of the family over there and they have a big frys electronics warehouse/store nearby and a local Tiger Direct. I would like to get one of these boards but dont mind getting a few more if i know you guys will take them off my hands when i get back here. Seems a bit risky, but i will do it through members market. If you are interested, say on here and ill contact you guys when im next going over
 
Ah cool. I have spoken to one of your representatives before at kontron because originally it was saying that the board was a desktop core2duo when it wasnt.

Its a shame about the lack of bios support, that would make me (and probably others) lean towards the foxconn or the portwell boards.

I wasnt making it out that it was a bad thing that you were looking at the forum threads, im glad as it sheds some light on an otherwise rare computer product.

Lets hope Kontron decides to get into selling Mini-ITX boards more frequently, but with bios support, you would have me as a customer for sure.

**EDIT** I have also added a thread to the product suggestion forum putting forward a few Mini-ITX boards which hopefully overclockers will try and get on their product listing. If you are interested in these boards it would be good if you also created a thread there so they know that there is the demand for these products, but sadly very little or no supply. **
 
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Yes it is a Full ATX PSU. Im currently running my system on a Seasonic 600wPSU and dont really want to get rid of it. I did look at other psu's but i was worried about how much they could actually power.

I will have the following in my PC:
Quad Core LGA 775
4GB Ram (2x2GB)
4 HDD's (750GB or 1TB Drives)
1 Slimline Slot Loading DVDRW-/+
Top of the Ranger Graphics Card (2900 XT 1gb or 8800GTX)
Dual 120 Rad (Intake) watercooling system for Graphics and CPU
Dual 60mm Fan (outtake) on rear of the case

This will all need to be powered by the 600w Seasonic.

MXM..... dont they only provide graphical solutions? And if so how good are they? I cant actually seeing them being a replacement for a top of the range gfx card. I will be running this PC on a 24" Dell 2405FPW and i do play games and use 3d applications so i need the graphics card.

I have been looking at the boards with an onboard mini-pci connector though aswell, might be able to put a nice wireless nic in there just encase.

Sadly yes, purchasing the boards is the tricky part. Though i work for a system builder in bristol and we have a contract with portwell as a supplier of some of our kit, so im enquiring about how much the board will be. And hopefully be able to buy one and see what theyre like
 
Was going to say i thought they were a bit of a rarity to buy... probably even more so then Mini-ITX boards
 
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