MSI J800I opinions?

LeeC22

LeeC22

LeeC22

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Joined
31 Oct 2008
Posts
103
Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this board in a system? I am looking at building a small Steam streaming PC and this board seems to fit the bill.

My current list of components is as follows:

Silverstone SST-ML06B USB 3.0 Milo Slim HTPC, Mini-ITX - Black
J1800I Intel MSI Mini-ITX Motherboard with Celeron J1800 Dual-core 2.41Ghz CPU
Corsair Memory 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-10600 (1333) x 2
CIT 400W micro-ATX Power Supply (PSU)
Cherry DW 3000 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse

I have only included that PSU as it's the smallest I could find on the site I was picking the components from, so I could reduce the power of that if I find a lower powered unit. That all currently totals approximately £142. I haven't added a HD because I have a spare 60GB SSD that I can use.
 
I'm sorry, I don't understand your response.

Have you used a J1800I board, found it unsuitable and used an Am1 system instead? If so, what problems did you have with the J1800I? Considering an Am1 system would be more expensive, what benefits did you get from using a more expensive setup, that would be relevant in using it as a Steam streaming client? Are Am1 CPUs somehow better suited to Steam streaming?

I have always followed the general consensus that you never answer a question with another question, as it doesn't actually answer anything, so I am perplexed by your comment. Could you please clarify your reasoning?
 
I've used one of these, but not in the context of a Steam station more a very low powered pfSense server. It definitely done the job well and didn't give me any headaches. I didn't use the MSI though, but the Gigabyte version.

There are some issues with the BIOS but only if you plan on using anything else bar Windows 8/8.1. But most of the manufacturers have released BIOS updates that remove that limitation and allow you to use Linux.

AM1 is good, I built the J1800 and AM1 system together, but it does use considerably more power than the J1800/1900 solutions. The benefit you do get, in my experience, is a better GPU as part of the processor and it's also upgradable unlike the J1800/1900 which is soldered onto the board.
 
I did actually build my system, based on the J1800I, I was just curious as to why I got a "why don't you use x?" type response when I was asking about opinions on a specific item. Quite often you get that because the person only has that alternate hardware, which is fine, but it doesn't address the question in any way.

The current J1800I bios now supports pretty much anything, it was locked to Win 8/8.1, but not anymore. I tried Windows 7, OpenElec, Ubuntu 12.10 and SteamOS and all installed with no real problems. The problem came from the Intel HD driver support, which I discovered Valve added in the Beta update last August.

So I installed Ubuntu 14.04, joined the Beta programme to get the update, and with an extra libva package, now have full hardware decoding. As a result, I get full 60fps decoding @1680x1050 (resolution dictated by my main PC monitors running a pair of NEC 20WGX2 Pro monitors), with an average latency of around 7ms - 14ms. The beauty is, that the GPU only has to really handle decoding, and it does that no problem.

I suspect that if you gave someone the controller, they would fully believe that the streaming computer was actually playing the game maxed out... I'm quite impressed.

The whole thing is housed in the Akasa Crypto X1 case, so it's completely silent, small and takes up far less room in the living room, than the Coolermaster Cosmos case that my main PC is in. In fact, it sits quite nicely in my AV rack, which is exactly what I wanted it to do.

I appreciate that there are always better CPUs and better GPUs, but sometimes, getting something that just does the required task, is often the right option. It will never have to do more than it is doing right now, so in that sense, it turned out to be the perfect option.
 
I was also looking at the j1900 but after reading loads of reviews and seeing peoples comments on Kodi i decided to go Am1.

Reviews where saying the Am1 system was the one to go for as its more upgradeable and bench marks where better.
people where moaning about the power use on the baytrail it was higher than expected.
people seem to have problems with signal on some tvs

For me Am1
i use power brick it plugs straight into the back of the board so mess from a normal psu cables.
Consumes 23watts
works great never had any issues.
 
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