Mini-ITX worth it? anyone have one?

[dlglaser]

I have some spare parts laying around...Nothing exciting, but all working parts, and enough to built a spare computer. All I need is a board & cpu.

I stumbled onto www.mini-itx.com the other day, and it got me very interested.

The prices of the mini-itx boards are very attractive. Their size seems very cool. But are they capabable computers? can you actually use them? or are they more of a conversation piece?

I don't play games. I mostly surf, chat, download music and movies, and use word or excel every so often.

I also think building one of these small machines would make a nice gift for my gf, who is using a slow, outdated 300mhz AMD K6. Not to mention, I have a tub of lego I'd love to build a case with.

Do these boards perform well? are they slow and bogged down? Can they handle programs like WindowsXP, Office, and Explorer?

Am I better off spending my money on a cheap motherboard and an entry level CPU (Celeron or Duron).

How does the VIA Mini-ITX stack up to something like a 1.1ghz Duron?

 

[tua]

If you really don't play games!! It's nice board for Divx and mp3's. Use flash disc instead of hard drive.Be sure that the graphic card has Tv out then you don't even need a monitor just plug it in TV.Use DVD instead CDR.

 

[Crashman]

Mini ITX is VIA's design to force you to upgrade more often. It's a shortened version of Micro ATX, with only one PCI slot (and one AGP slot). Micro ATX is a better choice with 4 slots (3 PCI, 1 AGP) available depending on the board. If you like small cases, I'd go Micro ATX. If you don't mind average sized cases, ATX is better yet.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[piasabird]

I built a little computer with a Via EPIA V 800 Mhz C3. It actually runs pretty well. I hooked up a DVD player and some speakers and it runs great. It makes a nice box for simple games and surfing and word processing. I kind of like it. Via is going to put a 24 bit sound chip on the next version. They are also going to come out with another version with flash and pcmcia.

when you see smoke is that a good sign?