Associate
- Joined
- 24 Jul 2005
- Posts
- 482
Hi all 
Long story short, was talking to a friend a while ago, and he asked me if I'd be able to help him spec out a new rig.
His requirements were silence, low power consumption for 24/7 use, but decent performance as a web browser/media player, with the odd bit of transcoding of film trailers.
My first suggestion was of course a dual core Intel Atom chipset with an Ion chipset. He's currently checking his old computer out to see if it's DDR1 or DDR2 (in which case he can re-use his old ram, I hope)
So basically, I'm looking at this for him:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-364-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1436
However, the oddness starts when he said he wants to make sure it's mounted in a normal PC tower (he said as parts of his room are arranged around the tower). I'm not sure whether he wants a full size of mid size tower, but I'm checking with him now. So I wanted to check if the Mini ITX board will be okay to mount in a normal size tower case? And if so, what would people suggest for a cheap tower with decent performance, that is also very quiet?
Another reason for the tower is he has 4 hard disks he wants to mount easily in it. The Asus board says it has 3 x sata connectors on it. Is it possible to split these and have 4 hard disks installed, or is it limited to 3? (if so, I'm sure he can budget in a new hard disk)
As for a PSU, for ease I was looking at (provided it comes into stock): http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-088-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
Can't see anything smaller or quieter on here for a PSU, but can anyone suggest anything else?
Also, does anyone know if you can overclock the CPU on the Asus board? I know some reviews of the dual core Atom have said you can overclock it to around 2.1ghz fairly easily, and is he's going to be doing the odd bit of trailer encoding, I thought this would be a handy feature (it doesn't need to be fast, but overclocking would be very handy)
Thanks very much all! Sorry for the odd bunch of questions
Long story short, was talking to a friend a while ago, and he asked me if I'd be able to help him spec out a new rig.
His requirements were silence, low power consumption for 24/7 use, but decent performance as a web browser/media player, with the odd bit of transcoding of film trailers.
My first suggestion was of course a dual core Intel Atom chipset with an Ion chipset. He's currently checking his old computer out to see if it's DDR1 or DDR2 (in which case he can re-use his old ram, I hope)
So basically, I'm looking at this for him:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-364-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1436
However, the oddness starts when he said he wants to make sure it's mounted in a normal PC tower (he said as parts of his room are arranged around the tower). I'm not sure whether he wants a full size of mid size tower, but I'm checking with him now. So I wanted to check if the Mini ITX board will be okay to mount in a normal size tower case? And if so, what would people suggest for a cheap tower with decent performance, that is also very quiet?
Another reason for the tower is he has 4 hard disks he wants to mount easily in it. The Asus board says it has 3 x sata connectors on it. Is it possible to split these and have 4 hard disks installed, or is it limited to 3? (if so, I'm sure he can budget in a new hard disk
)As for a PSU, for ease I was looking at (provided it comes into stock): http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-088-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
Can't see anything smaller or quieter on here for a PSU, but can anyone suggest anything else?
Also, does anyone know if you can overclock the CPU on the Asus board? I know some reviews of the dual core Atom have said you can overclock it to around 2.1ghz fairly easily, and is he's going to be doing the odd bit of trailer encoding, I thought this would be a handy feature (it doesn't need to be fast, but overclocking would be very handy)
Thanks very much all! Sorry for the odd bunch of questions
