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mini-itx, is the move worth it?

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rampy:

well, I'd take some measurements... how much space are you exactly working with? You might be able to put a cheaper/comprably priced mobo (that is more powerful) in that space sans case (which I imagine was the plan all along?)

*shrug* although you'll probably need a "all in one" motherboard... which usually have sucky video/audio... but Nforce chipset/series "all in one" motherboards get favorable reviews (for all-in-ones that is)

I plan on using a mini-itx in my pvr, or it would be great for some car pc application...  do you use your existing PC that's next to the bar top for anything besides just powering the bar top?  Maybe you could "de-case" it and get it to fit (depending on video card or other card "height") just some ideas...

good luck!

rampy

osiris:

Yeah, i suppose i should have mentioned this...

My original intention was to just use my current mb, but after measuring  theres no way it would fit, even if it had on board video, since its a slot 1 proc.  

The motherboard alone might just about fit, but no way with a shelf and standoffs.

The other thing is I would like to move to something with an integrated NIC.

Out of curiousity, how bad is the on board, if it plays stuff through street fighter alpha 3, or mark of the wolf, im cool with it

cack01:

Have you looked at any socket A micro-ATX boards.  

I personally would stay away from a mini-itx system unless its the "only" thing that will fit.  Alot of people have listed numbers here on mini-itx performance and I feel some of them are grossly high.  

If you can, go for a small socket A system and if you are worried about heat, get a mobile XP or underclock underclock a thoughbred B.  It would be cheaper, 10x faster, and only slightly bigger depending on the heat sink.

Spaced Invader:


--- Quote from: rampy on March 01, 2004, 03:25:24 pm ---
--- Quote from: Jakobud on March 01, 2004, 02:19:14 pm ---I don't 'think' the mini-itx will give better performance.  The 1ghz mini-itx cyrix-ish chip is equivalent in speed to about a p3-450mhz... Would be ideal for classics though.

--- End quote ---

Jakobud... I'm curious as to how you arrived at that figure.  I know cyrix stuff in the past has been lagging, and yes intel stuff had the fast FPU performance at comprable clockspeeds... but I'm pretty sure these "new" mini-itx via boards perform at comprable "flops" as an intel/AMD counterpart at the same clockspeed.

I don't have one in my possesion yet to give you actual benchmarks... but eventually I will (and will put em a review on  Build your own PVR/HTPC community site)

planetjay has one (the via epia m10000 I beleive) and his opinion anecdotally was that it was as fast as a comprably clocked intel/amd system... not to put text in pj's er... mouth... (I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm off the mark)

To the original poster, does your TV have svideo inputs (the mini-itx via epia m10000 does have both rca video out as well as svideo so I'm not sure why I ask)?

Now Transmeta chips are a different story... I've gota  1ghz one of those and was a little dissapointed in the MAME performance on it...

What was the question again?   :P

rampy


--- End quote ---

These things are a bit faster than their predecessors...the Samuel 2 and Ezra cores were based on old Cyrix and Centaur technology; the Nehemiah core uses technology gained from the swallowing of IDT. That little meal gave Via a slightly faster FPU and SSE...However the new chip is still dog slow when compared to anything AMD or INTEL has produced within the last three years.

The EPIA M10000 (Nehemiah core) chokes and sputters on 3d anything and although it will play Mpeg video well and Mpeg 2 quite acceptably, DIVX will quickly bring it to its knees. A 700MHz Duron or 1GHz Celeron (coppermine or better) will run rings around this Chip in 3d and (non SSE enhanced) multimedia.

Link with benchmarks:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/roundupmobo/via-c3-nehemiah.html

I have to agree with cack01. I've built two tiny boxes around micro-ATX boards (Coppermine and P4) and am very pleased with both.

Opinions vary... ;)

Smittydc:

I have a mini-itx built into a portable box.  The whole thing is sized at 25"x9"X8".  I plug it into a lcd projector.

The m10000 plays everything I tried except the mortal kombat games.

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