Advice wanted: SFF Home PC

Hi folks

Im looking for some advice on downsizing, i used to do a lot of gaming on my PC now i just don't!
so my current build i noisy and high power consumption.

I want to move to something LOW power and LOW noise.
I am considering the ASrock ION 330HT prebuilt Atom/ION system due to its size and low power (40w MAX under stress)

Usage of the PC:
Basic home use - email, internet, youtube, the odd flash game etc
Itunes
Office suite for work.
Dvd ripping and encoding with handbreak and AnyDVD
Occasional photoshop usage

Thats my total usage criteria really.
I want it small so if the asrock 330 would not be suitable i would be looking towards a Mini ITX build.

Can anyone help me out by suggesting if the asrock would be suitable, and if not giving me a build list (particularly with cases) that i could work from The budget is also not that high im looking for as close to £200 as possible and not much higher than £250 max

cheers folks!

------------------------------ Core 2 Duo e6300
Gigabyte DS3
2 x 1Gb Corsair pc6400 Cas5
x1900 XT Crossfire edition
Reply to Jetpac

DVD ripping and Photoshop are going to be painfully slow on an atom system. That said, I don't know that you could get anything better for less than £250.

If you could afford to spend a little more, I would recommend an i3-530 system. It's much more powerful than an atom (benchmarks are 4-5x higher) and more efficient under load (when you factor in how much faster it completes tasks). Power consumption under load of a complete system: ~60W (CPU Load), ~70W (CPU & GPU Load). ~£80

http://www.google.co.uk/products/c [...] #scoring=p

To save money you could go with an mITX case and psu combo. I think the Inwin ones are the best value. ~£50

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q [...] &scoring=p

The Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 is the most popular motherboard. You get just about everything that you would on a mATX motherboard even USB 3.0 support. ~£80

http://www.google.co.uk/products/c [...] #scoring=p

2 GB DDR3 1333. ~£35

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q [...] t&start=10

Western Digital 500GB SATA Hard drive. ~£35

http://www.google.co.uk/products/c [...] #scoring=p

SATA DVD Burner. ~£15

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q [...] &scoring=p

Total: ~£295

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by wielander on 09-09-2010 at 12:46:05 AM

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http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/1370780.png

Reply to wielander

Have you tried finding out which part of your current PC is the noisiest? Maybe it's just your fans that's need to be replaced. The atom is not much better than your current setup. You might have to just replace the video card to a less powerful one.

That x1900 XT Crossfire edition is a guzzler. If it's PCIe, you might get away with a new low end HD 4300 series or a GT 240 with passive cooling.

If you system fans are the noisy ones, a $40 fan controller might be all you need.

Unless you are just looking for an excuse to upgrade.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by punnar on 09-09-2010 at 02:41:22 PM

------------------------------ System:Athlon II X3 440 Rana 3.0GHz | 4GB DDR3 OCZ RAM | ASUS 4870 1GB DDR5 | MSI 740GM-P25 AM3 | Windows 7 64 || Games: SCII, WOW, AOC, Aion, EQ, LOR
Reply to punnar

punnar wrote :

Have you tried finding out which part of your current PC is the noisiest? Maybe it's just your fans that's need to be replaced. The atom is not much better than your current setup. You might have to just replace the video card to a less powerful one.

That x1900 XT Crossfire edition is a guzzler. If it's PCIe, you might get away with a new low end HD 4300 series or a GT 240 with passive cooling.

If you system fans are the noisy ones, a $40 fan controller might be all you need.

Unless you are just looking for an excuse to upgrade.

Im always looking for an excuse to upgrade
i just want something a lot smaller than my current tower!

Reply to Jetpac

Do NOT buy an atom. They are waay overprized. An aftermarket atom mobo (cpu+mobo+onboard graphics), costs ~$100/150. With that cash, you can buy an athlon II CPU and a decent AM3 board. Just get some triple core athlon II, and a cheap mobo.

ONLY get an atom if you are concerned about the size of your PC, however i'd prefer a laptop above an atom pc...

The downside of an atom PC is that there are no great mini-itx cases, and you need a micro-atx case for a proper system. I also want to mention that an dual/triple core athlon system only uses ~15/20 more watts on idle.

Also, don't get an i3 pc, as an i3 cpu costs over 100 bucks (dual-core athlons are ~50), the socket 1156 motherboards are more expensive also, but the performance is roughly the same.

Message edited by dmen on 09-09-2010 at 05:35:33 PM

Reply to dmen

wielander wrote :

DVD ripping and Photoshop are going to be painfully slow on an atom system. That said, I don't know that you could get anything better for less than £250.

If you could afford to spend a little more, I would recommend an i3-530 system. It's much more powerful than an atom (benchmarks are 4-5x higher) and more efficient under load (when you factor in how much faster it completes tasks). Power consumption under load of a complete system: ~60W (CPU Load), ~70W (CPU & GPU Load). ~£80

http://www.google.co.uk/products/c [...] #scoring=p

To save money you could go with an mITX case and psu combo. I think the Inwin ones are the best value. ~£50

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q [...] &scoring=p

The Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 is the most popular motherboard. You get just about everything that you would on a mATX motherboard even USB 3.0 support. ~£80

http://www.google.co.uk/products/c [...] #scoring=p

2 GB DDR3 1333. ~£35

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q [...] t&start=10

Western Digital 500GB SATA Hard drive. ~£35

http://www.google.co.uk/products/c [...] #scoring=p

SATA DVD Burner. ~£15

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q [...] &scoring=p

Total: ~£295

How does the onboard handle video playback? i might use it to play back from Bluray or to plays some of the ripped dvds from time to time?

------------------------------ Core 2 Duo e6300
Gigabyte DS3
2 x 1Gb Corsair pc6400 Cas5
x1900 XT Crossfire edition
Reply to Jetpac

The i3-530 has integrated HD graphics. They aren't great for 3D gaming, but they do have integrated HD decoding. Blu-ray disks would playback without a problem.

I suggested the i3-530 because it's the best option for a mini ITX system. Efficiency is much higher than that of an Athlon II. All-around performance rivals that of an Athlon II X4 which is similar in price, but the i3 consumes ~40% less power at idle and at load. Compared to the cheaper Athlon II X2 encoding performance is ~50% better, and it consumes ~20% less power at idle and at load.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2921/2

The only mini ITX AM3 motherboard with the latest features costs even more than the LGA 1156 one I linked:

http://www.google.co.uk/products?h [...] &scoring=p

Message edited by wielander on 09-09-2010 at 09:09:59 PM

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Reply to wielander

Those power consumption numbers are for complete systems. Compared to an Athlon II X2 and an X4, the i3-530 processor itself consumes ~30% and ~60% less power, respectively, at load and at idle.

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Reply to wielander

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