Mini Motherboard

Fractal Design Array R2 Reviewed (Mini-ITX)

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 19:38:47 +0000

Do you like this cool and smooth look of great multi-disk arrays from Fractal Design R2 series? Aren’t you still sure about getting one? If you still need more information about this case now thanks to bit-tech you may read a six pages long detailed review. They have included a lot of detailed photos and of course described it with every detail.

They have divided they review into following parts: General informations, exterior, interior, building, cooling and of course conclusion. So do you need to connect up to 6 hdd drives and tv tuner card to your Mini-ITX motherboard and keep it looking really good? First read the review and I am sure you will really love this chassis!

ASRock A330ION – world’s first ION board with DDR3 support reviewed

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 19:18:01 +0000

It looks that more and more services take seriously all Mini-ITX formatted motherboards. This time we can read a huge review of ASRock A330ION motherboard. First NVIDIA ION based mini motherboard with DDR3 support. As many of you may know this motherboard is ideal for building HTPC because of its high performance, video hardware decoding and low power consumption.

In review provide by “PC Perspective” you will learn almost all that is possible about this piece of hardware. They have even rated the cardboard box design… Moreover you may learn very detailed specification, see great quality photos and of course what is most important watch their benchmarks.

Thank you guys for great review! Bring us more like this. And here is the link to the review…

Echo III – little powerful computer?

admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:42:15 +0000

Puget Systems has announced their new computer in Mini-ITX form factor called Echo III. It has been packed into Lian-Li’s PC-Q08 Mini-ITX case to fit small but powerful ZOTAC H55ITX-A-E mini motherboard and keep it cool. Computer may be equipped with Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7 processor. Moreover it may be configured with up to 8GB of memory, powerful Radeon HD5970 or GeForce GTX 480 and up to 2TB of standard HDD or 256GB SSD drive (or even both!) + a Blu-ray player or writer.

This computer may be a good solution for anyone that needs good performance and want to keep their workplace tidy. It is small, silent and good looking so it may work as a powerful work computer/gaming machine/media center (choose what is right for you). As mentioned before the case by Lian-Li let all hot computer components to keep its performance thanks to Hydro CL1 closed loop liquid cooling system.

You may read more details, configure your own Echo III system and check exact pricing on Purget System Echo III configuration webpage.

Thermaltake Element-Q Reviewed… Again?

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:11:23 +0000

Some time ago (in this post) I have been writing about a review of great Mini-ITX case – Thermaltake Element-Q. As I have been writing about it already and linking to previous review I will not repeat the specification now. Just if you do not want to surf and read all my previous posts this case is a quite and very comfortable to use Mini-ITX case I can truly recommend… But… if you still want more and/or are unsure about buying this case I have a great news for you!

There is a new very long and detailed review posted by “Benchmark Reviews”. It is as long as 7 pages with detailed features, specification and a lot of photos. As usual you may check all pros and cons as seen by another reviewer. It got final score of 8.85 out of 10. So it is really not bad result. For a full review you may want to visit this page.

Mini-ITX in your Hi-FI tower?

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:06:48 +0000

A few days ago there was post about great looking Mini-ITX Hi-Fi like cases on bit-tech. I believe that their article was a paid advertisement but who cares until it is something really worth of your attention (I am not paid for this)… Cases they were writing about have been produced by Taiwanese manufacturer called “SEED“. Unfortunately I have not seen them in any shops yet (not even on my favorite Amazon) but as they have paid for the ads it should be available in shops soon.

Case I am writing about is “SEED MY-380″. It is available in two colors (black/silver). The one I prefer a lot more is silver. It is small (315 x 215 x 63mm) great looking HTPC case that can fit in your HI-FI tower. It has attached fanless 60W power supply (noisless!) at is cooled by low noise 5×5 cm fan. For more details you may visit producer website. And here are some photos of this beauty:

No related posts.

Building Silent 1080p Full HD Media Center HTPC. Part 2.

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:50:41 +0000

Here it a long awaited part 2 of our recommended hardware for building your own silent Full HD Media Center computer. As described in part 1 of this post, to all hardware I will use a three point scale:

2 – it may be really disturbing in some cases
1 – it is more silent than 2
0 – component is totally silent

Components that will be in our setup are: motherboard + cpu, storage, computer chassis, psu, remote control, CD/DVD/Blue Ray player, TV Tuner and operating system. In this part we will recommend you best motherboard and storage. So here are our recommendations.

Motherboard

As you may have noticed you are reading a blog about Mini-ITX solutions. So it won’t be a big surprise that I will recommend ad Mini-ITX motherboard. It is compact and consume very low energy. So it will not use much place next to your TV and will be energy efficient when working 24h/day.

Asus AT3N7A-I is motherboard we would recommend the most as it is the easiest to expand ION powered Mini-ITX form factor board. Unfortunately with original fan it will get 2 points as for noise.
ZOTAC ION-ITX-A is great motherboards with powerful dual core Intel Atom and integrated fanless PSU. Unfortunately it has a big CPU fan so it gets 1 point as for noise (60mm – more quiet than 40mm on Asus).
ZOTAC ION-ITX-C just like previous one has integrated PSU and fanless CPU! Unfortunately it is only one core Atom but it is totally noiseless! So it get 0 points as for noise!

All recommended motherboards are powered by NVIDIA ION chipset to make sure that it will be capable to easily play 1080p full hd video without any CPU usage!

Storage

Now it is time for storage. Noise level depends mainly from money you want to spend per gigabyte. You may choose from three kinds of technology. It may be 3.5″ hdd that is cheapest and generate most noise, 2.5″ hdd that generates much less noise but is more expensive and the last completely noiseless solution are SSD (flash disk drives). The last one are of course the most expensive. So here are recommendations:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB SATA 32 MB Cache Hard Drive ST31500341AS – cheapest choice. Cost is $0.06666/GB. Get 2 points as for noise.
Hitachi 500GB Travelstar SATA 7200 RPM HD20500IDK/7K – more expensive but much more quiet. Cost about $0.17/GB. Get 1 point as for noise.
Intel 80 GB X25M Mainstream SATA II Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDSA2MH080G2R5 – most expensive but totally noiseless! Cost about $2.82/GB. 0 points as for noise!

It looks that best (noiseless solution) will be most expensive. So you have to decide how much do you want do spend. Moreover if you would decide for the cheapest 3.5″ you will be able to buy as huge disk as 1,5TB. That will be really needed in your htpc to store full hd movies. You must decide here if you want silent or useful media center.

More recommendations will be posted in part 3. So make sure you subscribe to our blog to be notified about updates (check top right sidebar for subscription options). See you soon!

Mini-ITX Gigabyte H55 with USB 3.0 – First pictures

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:50:41 +0000

A few days ago some of new Gigabyte’s Mini-ITX motherboard pictures have leaked. Their new upcoming mini motherboard will be one of really powerful and good priced piece of hardware. New motherboard will pack a lot of features including Intel’s H55 Express chipset, USB 3.0 ports, four SATA ports, two dual-channel DDR3 memory slots and PCI Express x16 alot, PS/2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, a D-sub, DVI and HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet and 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out and eSATA connector.

This motherboard should be available in the shops this month. And here are some of leaked pictures found on other blogs:

Mini-ITX ECS H55H-I Reviewed

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:54:01 +0000

Thanks to PureOverClock (PureOC) we may read a great and very detailed review of Mini-ITX ECS H55H-I mini motherboard. What is so special in it? This motherboard is really promising to use for your media center computer.

Firstly it is equipped with Intel’s H55 chipset that is entry model for the LGA1156 platform. It offers integrated graphics and a lot of other features that are very important in modern motherboards.

ECS H55H-I offers a respectable set of features and a really good performance according to the price. It have a wide range of display connections that are so important in HTPC including HDMI, analog and optical audio. What is most important it is equipped with LGA1156 socket for latest new Core i5/Core i3 Clarkdale high-end desktop processors.

In general I would agree with PureOC that this motherboard with addition of strong graphics card like Radeon 5450 may be a really good choice for your home media center computer. Here you will find full review.

DFI CP100-NRM

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:27:50 +0000

DFI is well known from his great industrial Mini-ITX motherboards. Last month they have released their new Mini-ITX form factor motherboard CP100-NRM. Their new mainboard is based on lastly popular Intel QM57 Express chipset.

DFI CP100-NRM is equipped with LGA 1156 CPU socket and is capable to use up to 8GB of memory (two DDR3 800/1066 So-DIMM slots). Moreover you will find such expansion slots as PCI Express & PCI. On the back of this mini motherboard you will find two gigabit ethernet controllers, four COM ports, two channel audio with an S/PDIF input & output interface.

Thanks to QM57 chipset motherboard have SATA 3.0Gbps interface. Additionally it have integrated Intel HD graphics engine and multiple display outputs (VGA, DVI-I) and 8 USB ports. It have built in 24-bit LVDS interface, which provide a dual-independent display capability for intensive multimedia applications.

Such features as Intel Hyper Threading and Intel Turbo Boost technology strongly enhances performance of this mini motherboard. In addition it have been equipped with such technologies as Integrated Trusted Platform Module (TPM 1.2), the Intel Active Management Technology (Intel iAMT) 6.0, and the KVM (keyboard-Video-Mouse) redirection.

Mainboard is great choice for industrial applications. On the list of compatible processors you will find Intel Core i7-620M (SV), Intel Core i5-520M (SV) and Intel Celeron P4500 (SV).

iBASE MI953 Mini-ITX (Core i7/i5)

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:03:25 +0000

BACKPLANE Systems Technology have announced release of their new mini motherboard for Intel Core i7/i5 processors. New mini-itx motherboard will be powered by QM57 Express chipset that can support up to 8GB non-ECC DDR3 unbuffered memory (2 x 800 or 1066MHz).

Onboard graphics chipset that this motherboard is equipped offers a range of display interfaces including VGA CRT, DVI-I, DVI-D and 24-bit dual channel LVDS.

Moreover this mini motherboard includes ten USB 2.0 ports, four COM ports, four SATA II ports and dual Gigabit Ethernet adapter. Available onboard expansions slots are Mini PCI-E, PCI-E and PCI. The built-in high definition 7.1-channel audio is aided by a Realtek ALC888 codec.

As you may see with the specification this motherboard is designed mostly for industrial usage and do not offer anything special than good connectivity thanks to so many USB, display and COM ports.

More info: IBASE Technology