First mini ITX spec advice needed.

Bradley8988

Bradley8988

Bradley8988

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So i mostly only really use my rig for the odd game and surfing the net, msn, alittle light PS, downloading stuff. The thing is it seems a waste of energy to have such a spec running downloads all night and hardly using it to its full potential.

Now I dont wanna sell my current rig but I do like the idea of a small eco build that is powerful enough to playback 1080p MKV files as well as been cheap to run and as quiet as possible downloading through the night.

I dont want to game on it at all so I think onboard graphics would be fine. I also want to run atleast 2GB of ram for win7 but if possible alittle more.

As this is a 2nd rig i dont want to spend a fortune.

I need help on:

Mobo/cpu? Whats the deal with the pre fitted atom mobo's? Would that be plenty or would a 775 with a cheap dual core be enough? I am really lost on this part.

PSU? I guess a cheap silent modular one.

The case I plan to use is the Lian Li PC-Q07B and ram I can sort out. I will also use something like a 500GB samsung F3 for OS and downloads. I already have a external Blu-ray/dvd drive.

Does this all sound ok and have i missed anything?

Big thanks to any advice.
 
get an NVIDIA 'Ion' board with the dual core atom (the 330). The Intel on board graphics are not powerful enough for HD video playback whilst the NVIDIA boards are capable of doing so with the DHCP you will need for some HD media (bluray etc)... should you choose to go that way.

The Atom set up will use a lot less energy than a 775 set up saving you £££ on the electricty bill if the PC is left on for long periods of time.

If you buy a mini ATX mobo (ie an Atom one) you can get a suitable case with a low wattage PSU suitable for running it.
 
What sort of PSU would it take to run it? Are the atoms any good as i have heard there pretty slow. Noise and heat are a big factor though.
 
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I have just purchased a Silverstone SG06 case which comes with a 300w PSU included. I also bought 4gb of PC6400 CAS5 ram, a 2tb Samsung 5400rpm hard drive (quieter, cheaper and less power usage than 7200rpm... although slower) and the Asus ITX motherboard with the 330 dual core Atom processor on it (dont buy a single core). With a slim DVD/Blu Ray drive this form the basis of a great HTPC/Download box. It cant replace my rain I7 rig for gaming but for everything else its great (on the Asus at3n7a-i board you do need to replace the fan on the heatsink to make for a decent HTPC however). Runs fine with Windows 7
 
The 330 is old hat now.

Get your self the new Intel D510MO pinetrail miniitx board. This uses the new 45nm Dual Core Intel Atom D510, which is about as powerful as the 330, but at less power and uses on chip integrated graphics. Most importantly is that it is passive. No fan, no noise.

My pinetrail board cost less than 70 euros. Then I added 2gb of ddr2 and a broadcom crystal HD mini pcie card (ebay 20 quid).

Using the opengl version of XMBC, you can use this rig for full video accelerated 1080p mkv.

Your choice of 5400 2tb is good.

But a 300 watts PSU is bad as this is not efficient at low power. A much better choice would be a passive pico PSU, say 60W.

There is only one disadvantage to the above build and that its VGA output only, no dvi or HDMI. But I tested playback on my plasma vs my zotac ION (which uses HDMI) and whilst watching a 1080p the picture quality difference was marginal to say the least.

I leave mine on now 24/7 (downloading). It uses 13W of power!!!
 
Bradley8988 said:
What sort of PSU would it take to run it? Are the atoms any good as i have heard there pretty slow. Noise and heat are a big factor though.
Click to expand...

My atom Intel D510MO is not noticably slower than my overclocked i7860 (at 4GHZ) for normal PC tasks, such as surfing the web etc. It boots windows 7 in about the same time. It fact its quicker than the machine I use at work, for software development.

Noise is zero as its passive. Heat is no more than warm, without a fan.

Use an external PSU, eg a 60w pico PSU.

For price now, its getting to the point where it is starting to make sense to have seperate PC's for bespoke tasks. Eg a downloading PC, a web PC, a gaming PC, a ripping PC, a HTPC etc.
 
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