thought id pop this up on here as it might interest people..
i needed to build a new photo editing rig (Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom 2.5) but had minimal desk space. no optical drive required or any mass storage as my HTPC has more than enough shared storage. started looking at shuttle bare bones but struggled finding one i liked the look of for the right price.
then found the Lian Li Mini-Q (PC-Q07) ITX case.. perfect, looks nice and clean and not a bad price.
next problem, most of the ITX boards came pre packed with the Atom processor.. no good for me. the only solution seemed to be the range of boards from Zotac supporting the LGA775 socket and up to 8Gb DDR2. thatll do nicely.. had some issues finding stock of the zotac and ended up ordering that from somewhere else compared to the rest of the kit.
likewise with the memory, i have opted for 8Gb of Geil Black Dragon DDR2 which has a longer lead time for shipping than the rest of the bits so have temporarily sourced some Corsair XMS which i may sell on when the Geil arrives or it may accidentally end up topping up the memory in my HTPC lol
So, my spec is:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz
ZOTAC GF9300-D-E / GeForce 9300 / ITX Motherboard
1TB Samsung HD103UI EcoGreen F1
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2 DDR2 (until my GEIL 8GB (2x 4GB) Black Dragon turns up)
550W Corsair CMPSU-550VXUK ATX PSU
imagine my disgust when all the kit bar the motherboard turned up on xmas eve and i had to wait another 5 days for that to arrive (and even then the moron from the "Home Delivery Network" courier left it outside on the doorstep in the rain).
anyway i have it built up now and running with the 4Gb...
Pics..
A pile of goodies
Brushed sexiness..
PSU trial fitted.. it was such a tight fit that i had to remove the stickers from the side of the unit to get it in the hole. in hindsight the corsair has a LOT of cable, its going to be a bit of a cramped fit
Hurrah the motherboard arrived!
the powerplant..
one issue i did have with the stock intel heatsink was the clearance between the cable clips on the fan and the memory and northbridge heatsink.. ended up snapping the clips off and cable tying the fan cable on
the geil doesnt have heatsinks/spreaders so there should be a little more clearance later (hopefully)
motherboard built up
motherboard installed and samsung hooked up
thats the lot for now, for some reason i didnt take a pic of the snug power cables but im going to have to take it apart to fit the geil memory next week (hopefully) so will take one then.
windows 7 is on and running sweetly, no driver issues at all as Zotac have W7 drivers published for download. Photoshop fires up pretty much instantly, just need to get Lightroom mapped up to my storage and configured.
at some point i'll do some proper benchmarking once the 8Gb has gone in.
i'll try and get a pic tomorrow of it hooked up to the dell 2209 screen also.
if anyone wants to ask any questions feel free
i needed to build a new photo editing rig (Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom 2.5) but had minimal desk space. no optical drive required or any mass storage as my HTPC has more than enough shared storage. started looking at shuttle bare bones but struggled finding one i liked the look of for the right price.
then found the Lian Li Mini-Q (PC-Q07) ITX case.. perfect, looks nice and clean and not a bad price.
next problem, most of the ITX boards came pre packed with the Atom processor.. no good for me. the only solution seemed to be the range of boards from Zotac supporting the LGA775 socket and up to 8Gb DDR2. thatll do nicely.. had some issues finding stock of the zotac and ended up ordering that from somewhere else compared to the rest of the kit.
likewise with the memory, i have opted for 8Gb of Geil Black Dragon DDR2 which has a longer lead time for shipping than the rest of the bits so have temporarily sourced some Corsair XMS which i may sell on when the Geil arrives or it may accidentally end up topping up the memory in my HTPC lol
So, my spec is:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz
ZOTAC GF9300-D-E / GeForce 9300 / ITX Motherboard
1TB Samsung HD103UI EcoGreen F1
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2 DDR2 (until my GEIL 8GB (2x 4GB) Black Dragon turns up)
550W Corsair CMPSU-550VXUK ATX PSU
imagine my disgust when all the kit bar the motherboard turned up on xmas eve and i had to wait another 5 days for that to arrive (and even then the moron from the "Home Delivery Network" courier left it outside on the doorstep in the rain).
anyway i have it built up now and running with the 4Gb...
Pics..
A pile of goodies
Brushed sexiness..
PSU trial fitted.. it was such a tight fit that i had to remove the stickers from the side of the unit to get it in the hole. in hindsight the corsair has a LOT of cable, its going to be a bit of a cramped fit
Hurrah the motherboard arrived!
the powerplant..
one issue i did have with the stock intel heatsink was the clearance between the cable clips on the fan and the memory and northbridge heatsink.. ended up snapping the clips off and cable tying the fan cable on
the geil doesnt have heatsinks/spreaders so there should be a little more clearance later (hopefully)
motherboard built up
motherboard installed and samsung hooked up
thats the lot for now, for some reason i didnt take a pic of the snug power cables but im going to have to take it apart to fit the geil memory next week (hopefully) so will take one then.
windows 7 is on and running sweetly, no driver issues at all as Zotac have W7 drivers published for download. Photoshop fires up pretty much instantly, just need to get Lightroom mapped up to my storage and configured.
at some point i'll do some proper benchmarking once the 8Gb has gone in.
i'll try and get a pic tomorrow of it hooked up to the dell 2209 screen also.
if anyone wants to ask any questions feel free
