Which SFF PC?

[dangerstat]

So I'm going to ditch my current machine, in place of a smaller box.

I'm looking at the ACER Revo series, the Dell Zino series, the Apple Mini Mac, The ASRock ION series and the Aopen XC series.

I have the following requirements:
*MUST* have an Nvidia based GPU
*MUST* have a dual core Atom (minimum)

Which is the best option out there? What do you guys think of the Atom in general use?

 

[dangerstat]

Thanks for all the input

I've decided to go with the Asrock NetTop ION 330 in white. This will be my primary system for one year (minimum) so it'll be interesting to see how it gets on. As you can see from my sig, this is a big switch for me, so it'll be interesting to see how I get on. So I'll post updates.

The mini mac, just seemed to expensive for what you actually get. And the others just didn't really offer anywhere near the setup I was looking for.

Well fingers crossed. Hope it can cope with my work load!

EDIT: Purchase made, will let you all know how good / bad it is

 

[dangerstat]

Well it's just arrived looks pretty nifty I have to admit, comes with a HDMI to DVI converter which is very damn useful so essentially it supports my dual monitors out of the box. Surprised to find no keyboard and mouse. It's flying through a Ubuntu install.

Will be interesting to see what it is capable of, especially the pathetic dual core Atom.

 

[dangerstat]

So it's been about 10 days, and I've been using the Atom for everything as I've sold most of my ex rig.

I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 on this machine and everything works fine. It's not as quiet as I was led to believe in some reviews, but generally it's quiet enough not to be noticed unless your transferring large amounts from the (excellent) DVD to the hard drive.

The Atom is actually a quite a good option, power drawn from the wall NEVER goes above 40W meaning for a high draw power gaming machine I can run my desktop for 10x longer for the same electricity cost, which is outstanding.

Generally I've not run into the "omfg this is way too slow" problem as much as I feared. It feels around the same power as a single core P4 running at around 2GHz. Stressing the box, I've obviously been able to get to a point the Atom is unable to cope, though in the main development work on the Atom is no way out of the question.

More details as I continue to use it

Dangerstat

 

[dangerstat]

thx for the update tbh ive stayed clear of atom with that fear in mind, but mind u I do a lot of surfing with multiple websites and often am doing heavy downloads and watching 720p/1080 via the 2nd screen (using dual view).

Somehow I dunno if a dual atom would cut it, maybe they need a quad atom....

I may yet build a cheap £300-350 AMD quadcore low power cpu/4gig itx system and just leave it on 24/7 to handle my heavy task but will see.

Having about 5-8 sites open is fine. Standard flash videos are fine too. 720p/1080 is possible but it does tax the CPU a fair bit and leaves little left for anything else your doing at the time. Basically for your use I'd say you'd be pushing it to the max and you'd be generally unhappy with how quickly it gets to the point when it's lack of power gets noticeable. So a low power desktop quad might be a more sensible option in your case.

What puts me off them is people have moaned about the noise they make. Obviously it is the fan that some were complaining about. Fans can be replaced i suppose.

Yeah it's a little odd. I'm using it now (obviously) and it's just to the side of my monitor and now question about it I can hear it, I might well replace the fan on the CPU heat sync with something quieter over xmas.

 

[dangerstat]

Heard it is the case fan that is the problem. Have you opened it to see where the noise come from?

No not yet as it's been on 24/7 will have a look when I get around to overclocking it to 2.1Ghz

On my dual core atom I found the 40mm fan supplied was noisy as hell, but not really required. I have in m-itx case and just make sure the airflow from the 80mm fans is good and then there is no real need to have the 40 mm fan at all.

I have a strong suspicion your correct. I might monitor the temps under load, remove the fan and do the same and make a call on how stable I think it'll be without the CPU fan.

 

[dangerstat]

Thanks to walls in the Linux thread, I've just installed the openbox desktop (window manager or whatever you call it) and damn the performance increase is huge. If you have one of these Asrocks and are using Linux (and don't really need a bells and whistles desktop) give openbox a go, you will NOT be disappointed.

 

[dangerstat]

My final post on this topic.

It's been a while (6 weeks) since I bought the asrock and it's time to conclude my thoughts on it. Let me recall my major reasons for purchasing it.
[1] I was fed up of feeling the pressure to upgrade every 2 minutes
[2] my weekly average CPU utilization on my previous rig was below 15% ( I want to pay for elecy I use!)
[3] I wanted a truly low power solution to my computing needs
Those where my reasons for moving platform, though I still had significant requirements for the new box namely I should be able to develop (Java / C), watch (DVD) and browse (multiple instances of Firefox) without issue.

As I type this I have four firefox instances open, I'm playing a DVD and I'm running eclipse and CPU utilization is below 28%. It's powering dual widescreen monitors at 1440x900 without issue. So on the "usability" test it's passed. So what about power? It never uses more than 40W, simple as that, so yes it's more than 6 (yes 6) times less power hungry that my previous machine.

I'm lucky in the sense I have a single core Atom based machine (an Asus 1005HA) to compare it against. And I can say with total certainty the dual core really does help boost the Asrocks performance, overclocked to 2GHz (which is so easy to achieve even dvdbunny could do it) it's a decent performer.

If you need a small, decent looking and quiet SSF PC, you should place the asrock close to the top of your list. The BluRay version is only £230 now too. I'm happier with this machine than any other I can purchases (I've had "uber" specced setup and I own a macbook too) so it really has impressed me.

For something costing the best part of £200 its a bargain.

Possibly the best PC released in 2009.