Mini-ITX Atom HTPC

[kdar]

Well. I am thinking about a little different direction for my HTPC build.

Now I am thinking if I should go with Mini-ITX with Atom CPU or EXXX CPU

Here is what I have so far: (My biggest question is about CPU/Motherboard)

Option 1)Motherboard/CPU/Video Combo
ZOTAC IONITX-F-E Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz, dual-core) NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard
(Have Onboard Video Chipset NVIDIA GeForce 9400 and Wifi) - So probably will play 1080p just fine and able to connect me to my net-work.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500036

Option 2)b]Motherboard/Video Combo and CPU[/b]
ZOTAC GF9300-G-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300 HDMI Mini ITX Intel Motherboa (build-in GeForce 9300)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500035
and some Intel CPU.. maybe like E5300?

Which of the two would you pick? Atom way or E5300 way?
Give me some other ideas.

(Those below I kind of know what to get)
HardDrive
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EARS 1TB 5400 RPM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136490

Case
APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 250W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091
or
Foxconn RS233 Black+Light Silver Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 150W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811153099

Memory
Have memory

Optical Drive
Will get something. Not very important.

 

[kdar]

Anyone?

 

[rwpritchett]

Maybe you should consider the Zotac ITX-H55 board:

http://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-1156-Intel-Motherboard-H55ITX/dp/B0033Q4NJ2

... if you can find one in stock.

Pair it up with an i3 and you'll have quite the HTPC.

 

[kdar]

6-sata ports... its look nice. General layout of motherboard is nicer there.
I am just worried how H55 will work under Linux.

 

[Dougie Fresh]

If I were to pick between your two ITX boards, I'd pick the GeForce 9300 solution with the E3300 Wolfdale CPU. Before you trip on the name 'Celeron' read the reviews. It's the perfect HTPC CPU that isn't Clarkdale.

My worry with the Atom is what if the piece of software you aren't using doesn't take advantage of GPU acceleration? It will be very slow. And, it's expensive for what you get!!

What front-end are you going to run in Linux? XBMC? I think right now, you'll have to check, but XBMC Linux does a better job with GPU acceleration in Nvidia GPUs. You might get better driver support too. Not sure.

 

[kdar]

Linux and most likely XBMC Linux.

I also heard that Nvidia is most secure in terms of drivers support and tat it will work for sure.

But the mobo which rwpritchett linked also look very nice. However I don't know how H55 work under Linux. Somewhere I was reading it works under newer kernel. But I kind of want to hear it from someone who also use it as HTPC.


That CPU looks pretty good. Maybe I will go with this.